Copeland, Bobby

ORAL HISTORY OF BOBBY COPELAND
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
December 21, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is December 21, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Bobby Copeland, 104 Claremont Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take his oral history about living in Oak Ridge. Bobby, please state your full name, place of birth, and date.
MR. COPELAND: Bobby James Copeland; January 13, 1935; Flintville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Please state your father’s name, place of birth, and date.
MR. COPELAND: Andrew Jackson Copeland; also Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the date?
MR. COPELAND: December 12, 1912.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your mother’s maiden name and place of birth and date?
MR. COPELAND: Estelle McCreary; birthdate July 29, 1917.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what your father school history consisted of?
MR. COPELAND: I would guess about fourth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother’s?
MR. COPELAND: Probably sixth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know what the school name was that they attended?
MR. COPELAND: No idea.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have brothers and sisters?
MR. COPELAND: I have four brothers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are their names?
MR. COPELAND: Joe, Ben, Jack, and John.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do they live in the area?
MR. COPELAND: Joe and Jack live in the area. Ben lives in Florida. John lives in Maryland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of work did your father do?
MR. COPELAND: It was construction electrician – a lineman.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother work?
MR. COPELAND: No, she did not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What brought your family to Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: Dad had a relative who worked here, and this relative told him that they needed some electricians. He came up here and went to work for J.A. Jones on construction.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was the family living at that time?
MR. COPELAND: In Flintville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is Flintville?
MR. COPELAND: It’s in the south-central part of Tennessee near Fayetteville about 20 miles from the Alabama line.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the whole family come when your father did?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get here?
MR. COPELAND: Someone came and got us and brought us in a truck. The truck had a covered bed in it. Me, my father and one of my brothers rode in the back, and mother and brothers rode in the front.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you when you got to Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: I think I was nine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year was that?
MR. COPELAND: 1944 – October.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about your school history before Oak Ridge.
MR. COPELAND: I went to three grades in Flintville, Tennessee. We moved up here, and of course, I started in fourth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the school that you attended in Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: The first school was Wheat – The New Wheat School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where that was located?
MR. COPELAND: Just on the extreme west edge of Oak Ridge. I was very young.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that toward the K-25 site?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, near K-25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going to the Wheat School? Can you remember how the school set?
MR. COPELAND: No, I cannot. The only thing I remember is we were very, very poor, and I knew we would get a choice. I remember distinctly. In our class we got a glass of milk – a little container of milk – very small when it came in glass jars. I don’t know who paid for the milk, but we got milk each day, and I got chocolate milk. That’s the first time I ever tasted chocolate milk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was your family living at that time?
MR. COPELAND: In what we called Happy Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of home was that?
MR. COPELAND: We lived in a trailer, a green trailer. Everything was green back in those days – green and gray. Now, this wasn’t a trailer that you hook to a truck and pulled down the road. It was squarer. It was very, very small. In that trailer we had five boys – my mother, my dad, and my grandmother. We were on top of each other almost all the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your father walk to work? Did he work at the K-25 facility?
MR. COPELAND: He worked it J.A. Jones. I’m assuming it was down there. No, he carpooled. We did not have a car. He got a ride with someone. Let’s put it that way.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How far was the school from where you lived?
MR. COPELAND: It was in walking distance, and I would guess three quarters of a mile.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any activities you do during the summer time and Happy Valley?
MR. COPELAND: No, like all boys back in those days, we played Cowboys and Indians. We would make kites and fly the kite. We couldn’t afford to buy them, so we made our own kites and flew them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you make the kites out of?
MR. COPELAND: Newspaper and reeds from the woods.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think you told me one time that it was kind of difficult to find your way home sometimes. Was that true? How did you know where you lived?
MR. COPELAND: We came from the sticks – very, very far back in the sticks. We started the school at Wheat. Okay, these trailers were laid out in lines, and there were no markers – no trees or flowers or anything like this. If I could’ve cut cattycorner across going to my house, it would’ve been much shorter. But I was afraid I might not find the right trailer, so I would take the long way and go straight down the line, come to that particular road, and count the street numbers until I got up to my trailer. We lived at block 42, trailer seven.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What kind of surface were the roads in the trailers?
MR. COPELAND: These were paved that I walked on. Of course, there wasn’t much pavement in those days, but these were paved.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what the inside of the trailer look like?
MR. COPELAND: I really don’t. The only thing I know is we didn’t have much room.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to go outside the trailer to use the bathroom?
MR. COPELAND: We did. It was across the street and not too far.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Community-type bathhouses?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about washing clothes?
MR. COPELAND: Same thing. They had a wash house, and Mother would take the clothes over there and wash them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the trailer have any running water inside?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t recall, but I’m sure it must have. I just don’t recall it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a rec center at the Happy Valley community. Did you ever attend that?
MR. COPELAND: No, I was too young.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did the family live in this particular area?
MR. COPELAND: We were there probably around a year. We lived at three different places in Gamble Valley. The reason we lived at three different places – this was the extreme west end of town. At that time, the government was closing out. The war just got over, and they were closing out the trailers. So they started at the extreme west end of Oak Ridge and moved the trailers out. We moved into Gamble Valley, which was then west Oak Ridge. We moved in the west end of Gamble Valley. It wasn’t long until they moved out to the west end of Gamble Valley. So we moved in to the center of Gamble Valley, just a couple months later. They move those trailers out. Then we moved into the east end of Gamble Valley. It wasn’t long before they move those out. Then we moved into a trailer in Grove Center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now all these trailers that you lived in – where they furnished?
MR. COPELAND: I believe they were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You just brought your own belongings and kept moving?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember anything about living in Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: I remember my playmates. We had a good time. One thing – I don’t know if you would be interested to hear – as they took the trailers out, they would leave the electrical wire hanging outside the trailer. We had a little hut, and we got the bright idea that it would be nice if that hut had electric lights. We got us a lamp and took part of the cord off that. We went to one of the trailers and cut some of the electrical cord up there. We put this wire together, and then we opened one of the windows to one of the trailers and plugged it in. We had electric lights in our hut – until the mother saw the plug in the wall, and electric light didn’t last very long. Fortunately, we did not get electrocuted.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of games did you play when you lived in the trailer camp?
MR. COPELAND: We played Cowboys and Indians, and we rolled tires. That was big, big back in those days. You would get a tire, and you would roll it down the road. We would have races against our friends about who could push the tire the fastest, them or us. We played those tires a lot. Back then, all the boys played Cowboys and Indians. We played Cowboys all the time. This was even before we got interested in sports. There weren’t any organized sports back in those days, and we didn’t play many sports. We might kick a ball around or something like this, play kick the can, or hide and seek; but that’s just about the extent of it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any milk deliveries coming into the trailer camps?
MR. COPELAND: We surely did. As you would guess, with that many people – the five kids, and mother and dad, and grandmother – we got quite a bit of milk. Of course we would leave the milkman a note, and he would leave the milk on the front steps. It worked out very well until we got milk that the cows had eaten onions or even bitter weeds; and then you just put the milk back out there and let them know that they’re going to take this milk back next time and give us credit because we couldn’t drink it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about ice, was in there ice delivery, too?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t recall getting ice delivered. I’m sure it was, but I just don’t remember it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how the trailers were heated?
MR. COPELAND: I believe it was oil. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I think it was. Bear in mind that I was nine or 10 years old, and the only thing I was interested in was eating and sleeping and playing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What school did you attend when you were living in Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: I went to Gamble Valley. I’ve had a lot of arguments from people who say, “You didn’t go to Gamble Valley.” I did, too. I know several other people in Oak Ridge at that time that went to Gamble Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why were they arguing about not going to Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: Because it became a black school. They say, “You couldn’t have gone there because it was all for blacks.” Before it was for blacks, it was for the whites. Later, it became a school for the blacks.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You are correct. There was a Gamble Valley school for the kids in the trailer camp.
MR. COPELAND: Yes, there was. You have photos of it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Absolutely. Where did the family move to after Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: We moved to Grove Center on Robin Lane. Here’s another interesting story. Some lady called me one time and we got to talking. She said she lived on Robin Lane. I said that I used to live on Robin Lane. She said, “You did? When did you live there?” I said, “When it was a trailer court.” She said, “Oh no, there were never trailers on Robin Lane. There were only houses, and we bought one of the first houses that were built here.” You know, you can’t argue with someone like that. I knew that I lived on Robin Lane. My cousin lived right around the corner in that Grove Center trailer court. As you know, it was a trailer court before there were houses there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: She must’ve thought it was flattop-type housing.
MR. COPELAND: She didn’t even think it was flattop houses. She just insisted that her house was the first one ever there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: She’s mistaken. That’s for sure. When you lived on Robin Lane, what school did you attend?
MR. COPELAND: I still went to Gamble Valley for the rest of the year – the rest of the sixth grade. Then the government closed out the trailer camp in Grove Center. So we had to move again. We moved down to the west end of town in a flattop on West Bryn Mawr.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were living on Robin Lane, and went to Gamble Valley school – how did you get to school?
MR. COPELAND: Bus. They had buses to come by there and pick us up for the rest of the year going to Gamble Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you knew which bus to get on?
MR. COPELAND: I do not know. I guess it was the only one that came by.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about memories of attending Gamble Valley School. Do you remember some of the classes you took?
MR. COPELAND: It was just the typical grammar school, where classes are – it all runs together. You had one year one class all day. You have Art and Music and whatever else. That’s what we had, and it was a lot of fun. I made some good friends. The only thing I remember distinctly about it was that one guy lived in Mexico. This was about the fifth grade we were in, and we were studying Mexico. He decided that he would be a Good Samaritan and make us some chili and hot chocolate. It sounded really good and he brought it in. When he brought it in, he probably made the chili like the Mexicans like it. It was super-hot. We were 11 and 12 years old. We would eat that chili, and then we would have to have something to drink because it was killing us. Well, the hot chocolate was scalding hot, and every kid in the building got a burned mouth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any of your teachers’ names?
MR. COPELAND: It seemed like we had one named Mrs. Pettis. I believe that was her name. I don’t remember the other one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After attending Gamble Valley School, what was your next school that you attended?
MR. COPELAND: We went – again, we moved down on Bryn Mawr, and from there I went to Robertsville. It’s there now, but it’s not the same building. We went to Robertsville, and we caught a bus from the west end of town to the Robertsville Junior High.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You are speaking of the original Robertsville School?
MR. COPELAND: The original Robertsville School. Let me back up. It was the Robertsville community, but it was the Jefferson Junior High School at the time. And they moved the Jefferson Junior High school to the east end of Oak Ridge now, but when I went there it was Jefferson Junior High. Let me correct myself.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In the old Robertsville…
MR. COPELAND: In the old Robertsville building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Can you describe what that building looked like?
MR. COPELAND: No. I don’t remember a whole lot about it. I remember the gym and some of the classrooms, and I remember the two-story building that set up next to one of the roads. The good thing about that building was the fire escape. We loved that fire escape. If you are on the second floor, you had the chance to use it every time we had a fire drill. It was really fun. We wanted to have one every day if we could. As you would guess, all the boys gathered at the foot of the fire escape.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the fire escape.
MR. COPELAND: It was a chute. It was a chute connected to the building. You would go, and they would open the door. You would get in the chute and slide down it – just like a slide. Every kid back in those days loved to slide. We loved to fly down that chute. It was metal, and the boys would congregate at the bottom to watch the girls slide down, hoping their dresses would go up over their head.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that an opened chute, or was it inside a silo affair?
MR. COPELAND: It was a silo affair on the outside of the building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How often did you have fire drills?
MR. COPELAND: There must not have been about four a year probably.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The house you lived on West Bryn Mawr. What type of house was that?
MR. COPELAND: Flattop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What does a flattop look like inside?
MR. COPELAND: This was a two-bedroom flattop, and it was pretty plain inside. We had a big coal burning stove, and the appliances were furnished. The refrigerator was small. The stove was small. Everything had to be small to fit inside this. Again, this was a two-bedroom flattop, and we still had eight people living in the two-bedroom flattop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you manage that? How was the sleeping arranged?
MR. COPELAND: In one bedroom, we had one bed for my grandmother, which would be a twin bed. Then butting up against that against one wall would be a double bed where two brothers slept. On the end of her bed would be another twin bed, and I had that twin bed by myself. Then my two brothers slept in the living room on the couch. It was crowded.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what type of heat the flattop had?
MR. COPELAND: It had a coal burning stove.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you get the coal?
MR. COPELAND: The coal was delivered by the government or Roane-Anderson – whoever ran the city at that time. They delivered the coal.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they put the coal?
MR. COPELAND: There was a coal box out at everybody’s house. The thing about these coal boxes – they were pretty ugly. And for some reason, it seemed like that’s where everybody went to have their photo made – sitting on the coal box. I don’t know why they chose that because it was probably about the ugliest place that one could get.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of sidewalks did you have at the flattop?
MR. COPELAND: We had wooden sidewalks at the flattop. Let me back up. When we lived in Gamble Valley, we had wooden sidewalks. But the wooden sidewalks looked like they were about two-by-six tall. My vivid memory is that the rats – I’m not talking about mice. I’m talking about rats. These rats would dig under those sidewalks, and if you walked on the sidewalks, you could hear a rat running underneath you as you walked on the sidewalk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were going to Jefferson and Robertsville, do you recall some of your teachers’ names?
MR. COPELAND: I recall one distinctly – Mrs. Walsh, a wonderful lady. I guess everyone has one teacher in their background, which really stands out in their memory. She was a wonderful lady I surmise that she was a strong Christian individual. I never asked her, but the way she lived and the way she talked and acted, made me think that. I know in the eighth grade I had Miss Fillers. In the ninth grade I had Mr. Slusher.
MR. HUNNICUTT: These teachers – what would you suspect their ages would be at that time?
MR. COPELAND: When you are 13 years old, it’s very difficult to tell. Mrs. Walsh had gray hair, and I would guess she was in her 50s. Miss Fillers I would guess was probably in her mid-30s, and Mr. Slusher was an older individual. I would guess he was pushing 60.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports in junior high?
MR. COPELAND: Only in intramurals.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Explained to me what that means.
MR. COPELAND: If you don’t play for one of the main teams – the varsity teams, then they have what they call intramurals where you can participate in sports, but you won’t earn a letter and it won’t be highly organized. You won’t have practices and things like this.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was Nick Orlando one of the coaches?
MR. COPELAND: Oh my gracious. Nick Orlando was one of the coaches. Nick Orlando was one of the lead characters in Oak Ridge history. I mean that in the nicest sense of the word. Everyone knew Nick Orlando. Everyone knew the guy, and everyone was crazy about him. He knew everybody not only in the school systems, but almost everybody in Oak Ridge. He was a real character.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was Bob Stuhmiller down there as well?
MR. COPELAND: Bob Stuhmiller was there. He was a very quiet gentle man, and he coached basketball and track.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember different about attending junior high versus elementary school?
MR. COPELAND: They were totally different because you had various classes and rooms that you went to for different things. Like for Physical Education, Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation. In grammar school, you had them all in one class all day long.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the grammar school in Gamble Valley have a cafeteria?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t think it was big, but I do not know. We lived close enough that I went home for lunch. I don’t think that would be allowed today. I went home for lunch. I was probably about 12, and each day I went to lunch. I don’t think that they allowed that today. I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about at Jefferson Junior High – did they have a cafeteria?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, they did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you eat in the cafeteria?
MR. COPELAND: No, I carried my lunch. We couldn’t afford it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You left Jefferson and went to the high school. Where was the high school located?
MR. COPELAND: The high school was located at Jackson Square. Later on that became Jefferson Junior. I went there my junior year, and then my senior year I went to the current high school where it’s located now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what did you see different when you went to high school versus junior high?
MR. COPELAND: It was much more intense. Things were I thought better organized, and we had more time to devote to particular studies and that type of thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were the courses that you took in school difficult for you? What type of student were you?
MR. COPELAND: You have to bear in mind that my parents had no education – or very little education. They had no way of leading me or instructing me. I was a typical boy, I would say. I just took the easiest classes I could get to get out of there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports in high school?
MR. COPELAND: I did. I participated in sports. I was on the track team for two years under Coach Ben Martin – a very memorable time because Coach Martin was a wonderful gentleman.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In junior high school, during Physical Education, were the students required to take showers in those days?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was kind of a new adventure for you, I would say.
MR. COPELAND: It was because we hadn’t taken a lot of showers in Gamble Valley and previous places where we lived. This was a real experience; it was a pretty good deal. When people had to take a bath at my house, I did not take a bath. Everybody lined up to take baths, and I had had mine at school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have Physical Education every day?
MR. COPELAND: I believe we did in junior high school. I had Nick Orlando.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about being on the track team. What did you do when you were on the track team?
MR. COPELAND: I was a high jumper and a long jumper. It was good to be with those people. I had never been on a team before, so that meant a lot to me to have teammates. Of course to have a coach like Ben Martin was a real bonus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What made you decide to be on the track team?
MR. COPELAND: One day some guys were out jumping – high jumping, and I just was hanging around I guess. I thought maybe I would try that. In fact, this was in ninth grade. I finally found this out. After they got through jumping, I found that I could out jump them all. I had no idea. You don’t know what you can do until you try something. I didn’t know I could jump or how high I could jump or run that there or anything else. It just so happened that I happened to be the best that day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember Ben Martin when you had him in Physical Education. He would make the students do certain things related to track events. That way he could pick out some of his people for track.
MR. COPELAND: He would. He would have races and broad jumps and long jumps and stuff like this. In a lot of cases, like I was talking about jumping – in a lot of cases, you might not realize you are fast until you run against somebody and keep beating people. Ben Martin would come up to you and say “I would like to have you on my team. Would you consider going up for track?” Some did, and some didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the best thing that you liked about Ben Martin?
MR. COPELAND: He was a gentleman. That very much impressed me. My father was anything but a gentleman, so I hadn’t been around very many gentlemen. Martin was one of the most gentlemanly fellows. He was kind and considerate. He did not use foul language. He was well respected by not only the students, but the teachers as well. I think the thing that impressed me more than anything else was he was a man to look up to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes that you did take in high school?
MR. COPELAND: I took the easiest classes I could take. That was a mistake. I had no guidance at home. No one ever asked me if I had homework or what classes I was taking this year. I was never asked those questions. “Did you study your homework tonight? Did you have any homework?” I was never asked those questions – never. Most of the time, I just took the easiest classes I could take.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you belong to any clubs or organizations?
MR. COPELAND: I belong to the Letter Men’s Club and the Stamp Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the Letter Men’s Club. What did that consist of?
MR. COPELAND: Of course you had to earn a letter in one of the sports. If you accomplished so much in a particular sport, you would be awarded a school letter with an Oak Ridge OR and a nice sweater to go along with it. Once you earned one of those letters, then you are eligible to join the Letter Men’s Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Could freshman or juniors – didn’t matter what grade you were in to earn a letter?
MR. COPELAND: No. It did not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did the student know that they were doing what they needed to do to earn a letter?
MR. COPELAND: Usually in football you had to participate in so many quarters. I’m assuming in basketball it would be so many quarters. In track it would be so many points. In baseball, I don’t know how they measured in baseball, but I guess their coach would determine on his own if you played enough that he thought you deserved a letter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the other club you were in?
MR. COPELAND: The Stamp Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did that meet after school?
MR. COPELAND: It met after school – yes, it did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On the school property?
MR. COPELAND: On the school property.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about collecting stamps. I know you don’t just take them off the letters and put them in a book.
MR. COPELAND: That’s how you get started. Usually if you are serious about it, it advances from there when you go to the post office and by every new issue of stamp you can get. Sometimes there was a whole sheet of stamps you would get. It depended on what type of stamps you are collecting. Maybe you were collecting foreign stamps, if that’s the case, [inaudible] the stamp. It was something new. Almost every boy had a collection of some kind – arrowheads, coins, stamps, or they chased butterflies. It seemed like girls didn’t have any collections, but boys always had to be collecting something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summer days in between school years, what did you do for fun?
MR. COPELAND: We would try to find a ball field someplace. Let me rephrase that – we would try to find a field, not a ball field, but a field – any place that had some space. Of course we would play softball. We would play softball. We would start about nine in the morning and play until lunch; come back after we ate lunch; go back to the ball field and play again. We would play. We would ride bicycles if we had one. Pretty much that’s what we did all summer – play softball. In the wintertime, hopefully one of our buddies would have a basketball goal, and we could go over there and shoot basketball. Of course we would play touch football. That was a big thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit the swimming pool very much?
MR. COPELAND: I didn’t visit the swimming pool very much. I never liked water, and I sunburn very easily. I didn’t visit very much. That pool back then was so cold that once you went in the pool if you got out, the chances are you wouldn’t get back in. It was just too cold. It was spring-fed, and it was icy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It’s that way today, too.
MR. COPELAND: Believe me, it’s much warmer today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about the skating rink at Jefferson?
MR. COPELAND: I never skated, but I liked to go down there because they had great music. They had music like you would hear at a carnival or something. I wouldn’t want to go to the skating rinks today. Last time I went there they were playing heavy rock ‘n roll and stuff like this. But they played beautiful music to skate by. They played music where you could get skates and dance to the music. You can’t dance to that music on skates today, I don’t think. The music just kind of flowed with the skaters, and I used to love to see that and watch the skaters. I never tried to skate, but I love to watch the skaters.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a gentleman that played the organ there that made the music.
MR. COPELAND: That’s what I like – that organ music. I love that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit the American Museum of Atomic Energy?
MR. COPELAND: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about that?
MR. COPELAND: Nothing, except getting that irradiated dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think everybody remembers that, and that’s it. Did you ever see the Van de Graaff, where the hair stands up?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t recall that. I was pretty young at the time. I only visited there I think one time. I was probably about 13. I just ambled through the building and didn’t know what I was looking for, and just found the dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do for spending money?
MR. COPELAND: I didn’t have any spending money. This was the roughest thing. Of course I was really into the cowboy movies back then, which every boy went to the cowboy movies. That was the thing to do. I remember I would start begging on Wednesday, “Can I have a dime to go to the movie on Saturday?” If I was lucky, I would get a dime, but I didn’t get to go a whole lot because I wouldn’t get a dime. When I got a paper route, I felt like I was rich. I was probably making about $3.50 a week. Not only did I feel rich, I felt independent. I felt like I didn’t have to depend on anybody else. I could buy my own candy. I could go to the movies when I wanted to. I could go to doubles or whatever else. I really felt rich. I’m sure I made less than four dollars a week, but I really felt rich.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of paper route was it?
MR. COPELAND: I started off with that [Knoxville] Journal. Then later on I graduated – I say graduated to the [Knoxville News] Sentinel. The Journal had probably I would guess 25 percent of the circulation that the Sentinel had when you got a Journal route, you had a tremendous amount of walking and a few customers. I didn’t like the people who ran the Journal. I didn’t think they were honorable people, especially the route manager I had. I didn’t think he was an honorable guy. But when I went to work the Sentinel, I found they were very honorable and straight shooters. Your route was probably one third as long, and it had maybe twice as many customers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do remember how many customers you had?
MR. COPELAND: I think the most I had was pushing 50.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get the money for the newspaper? You had customers, and they paid you. How did you go about getting the money?
MR. COPELAND: I would – the paper was $.35 a week and I believe I got $.12. I would get the money, and I would get my paper bill, and I would pay my paper bill. I would keep the money that I was allowed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you would go to each customer and collect money from them?
MR. COPELAND: Every Friday, you collected for the paper. If you are fortunate enough to find everybody home…
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did, you remember who paid and who didn’t pay?
MR. COPELAND: You had a little route book, and you would mark it in your little route book each time someone paid.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned the route manager. Do you remember who the route managers were?
MR. COPELAND: I do. The route manager for the Sentinel was Mr. Huffaker, and the one for the Journal was Mr. Smith. I think Guy Smith may have owned the Journal back in those days. This was probably one of his relatives. Anyway, they were very shyster people. I just didn’t like them at all.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you are living on West Bryn Mawr at this time?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, and then later on I still had the paper route when I got another paper route when I moved to Illinois Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house did the family move into on Illinois?
MR. COPELAND: Back again, remember as I told you when they started moving the trailers out of the west end, they started doing the same thing with the flattops when we were on the west end. So we had to move again. We were forced to move again. We got a flattop on Illinois Avenue, which was also a two-bedroom flattop. I liked to live there because it was close to the Hilltop Market.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember when they are moving the trailers out of the flattop how they did that?
MR. COPELAND: No. I have no idea. We were gone when they moved them out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you would leave and never saw them again?
MR. COPELAND: I never saw them move one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You said living on Illinois Avenue close to Hilltop Market – why did you like that?
MR. COPELAND: They had a drugstore up there, and it had a jukebox. You could go up there – they had a soda jerk, where you could buy your ice cream over-the-counter or your sundae or soda over-the-counter. Then right next door they had a grocery store. We would go in there and buy candy. It was just a short walk from where we lived, so I enjoy that very much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a lot of neighborhood buddies?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, but not close by. I used to have to walk up to Warrior Circle. That’s where a lot of buddies lived up there – not right next door to me, but half-mile away I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how the neighborhoods were? Were the people friendly and cordial to each other?
MR. COPELAND: Very much so. Every place we ever lived the people were just as kind and pleasant. It was almost like relatives. Maybe sometimes it was better than relatives. There was no bickering going on. Everywhere we lived, it was very pleasant. As you heard this 100 times, people didn’t lock their doors. They didn’t worry about anybody stealing anything. The city was still a closed city until 1949, and it was just a wonderful time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you attended school, did you pick up on the fact that some of these kids were pretty smart?
MR. COPELAND: No, Ididn’t. When I was in high school, I noticed that more. When I was in high school, is obvious that some of these kids or youngsters were very bright. There was no question they had a great future in front of them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You feel like that their parents were pretty highly educated?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, I think in most cases it was because they were in homes where they had dinner and talked about math and science. When other kids had dinner, they talked about football and family things like this. I think the environment they lived in and came from had a great deal to do with their being so bright.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned going to the movies. Tell me about that.
MR. COPELAND: I started going to the movies in that Happy Valley area, which most people in this town even today have never heard of this theater. It was the Playtime Theater. I bet you if you asked 10,000 people in this town, you won’t find one person who has heard of it. We went to the theater down there for a short while, and there are no photos. There was a little shopping center there – little grocery store and post office and everything – a barbershop and everything we needed. But as far as I know, there are no pictures anywhere of that shopping center. I’ve always wanted a picture of the theater, but it just doesn’t exist.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about on Saturday? Did you attend the theaters that show the Westerns?
MR. COPELAND: It was only on Saturday if I was lucky enough to get a dime. Never would I even think about asking for a dime during the week. Of course, most of the time I wouldn’t be wanting to go during the week to the larger production movies. I liked the cheap Westerns.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned one time to me some time ago about an event that happened at a movie theater in Midtown, I believe. Would you like to recall that?
MR. COPELAND: It was one of the most exciting times in my young life. I was really into these movies – the cowboy movies. I never dreamed I would get to see one of my heroes. That’s what was good about these movies back in those days. The cowboys were clean-cut. They didn’t drink or carouse or swear. In fact, if they had a bad man, they would pick him up to hit him again. When they shot someone, you didn’t see blood. If you wanted to be like one of those guys. You wanted to be Roy Rogers or Bob Steele or Gene Autry or one of these guys. One day I saw a poster – we didn’t take a paper, there was a poster on one of the telephone poles – the electrical poles. It said that Bob Steele was coming to town. I was just beside myself. I couldn’t believe that some little boy in East Tennessee would get the chance to meet one of his all-time heroes. When it comes time for Bob Steele to getting close to get here, at that time I started begging like crazy to get some money to go see him. Of course, they cost nine cents to get in. I was hoping I might get an extra quarter because I thought maybe Bob Steele would be offering photographs for sale. Things were cheap in those days as you might have guessed. A photo would get you a quarter. I got so lucky my mom gave me $.35. My dad would never give me any money. He thought it was a total waste of time going to those old cowboy shows. He did not know that you are getting a lesson in morality every single time you saw one of those shows. I got to see Bob Steele, and it was just a great time. Just as he closed his program…
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was this?
MR. COPELAND: This was at the Midtown Theater. They showed a movie with Bob Steele, and then he came up on stage and talked and talked. It was a great time. I remember one thing about us talking. He was talking – it was a big bang on one of the side doors, and it stopped, and Bob Steele started talking again. Here comes the banging on the door again. He would start talking again, and on the third time but was so loud it echoed throughout the theater.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were you sitting?
MR. COPELAND: I was sitting in kind of the center, and I remember distinctly as I was sitting on the center this was on the left-hand corner down near the stage. Finally Bob Steele says “Will one of you guys go over there and see what that is?” When the guy went over there and opened that door, here come one of the movie bad man – Blackjack O’Shea was his name. He was shooting that gun and screaming at the top of his lungs “Where is Bob Steele?” I think that little kid that opened that door probably just melted right into the floor. I have often wondered how many years it took him to get over that. After it was over, I did get to see Bob Steele, and he had photographs for sale, and they were a quarter – just exactly what I had left. I asked him to sign one for me, and he said “How do you want it signed?” I said “Will you please sign it to Bobby?” He said “I think I can do that because they used to call me- Bobby.” I left the theater with that cherished photo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s quite a story. When you went to high school, what was the dress for boys in those days?
MR. COPELAND: Pretty much blue jeans and T-shirts and tennis shoes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there smoking allowed in high school?
MR. COPELAND: No smoking. By the way, the girls always wore dresses and skirts. They wouldn’t dare show up in pants.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about dances – did you attend any dances?
MR. COPELAND: No, I did not. They had sock hops and things like that. I’ve been to a couple sock hops. I didn’t dance, just went with a couple of guys instead of going with a couple of girls.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about dating? Did you do any dating in high school?
MR. COPELAND: Sure, like anybody else. Luckily we moved to Illinois Avenue, and on my paper route was this beautiful little girl – a dark skinned girl. I delivered her paper for three years, and I often wondered about this because here I was dating the girl, and I delivered her paper for three years, and I never got a tip. I wasn’t sure if her parents were thrilled about me dating their daughter not. They never gave me a tip. Back in those days, I would say 75 percent of the people gave the paperboy a tip. If the paper was $.35, they might give you a half a dollar and say “Keep the change.” I know one lady on the paper route, she gave me a silver dollar every year, bless her heart.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you go on your dates?
MR. COPELAND: We didn’t have a car until I was 17, so pretty much I would go to church with her. Then we would come home and be at her house for a while. Then we could walk to the swimming pool. It wasn’t far from the pool from where we lived. We could walk to the Grove Theater. That was interesting. If we saw a real late movie, we took the cab home. There was a cab place there in Grove Center. Often we walked back up the hill. It shows you how times have changed. I wouldn’t want to walk up the hill now myself at night, much less accompanied by beautiful girl.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much the cab fare was?
MR. COPELAND: I think it was about $.35.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about to get into the movies?
MR. COPELAND: At that time, I think it was $.35. When I first started going to the movies, it was nine cents and it went up to $.12. I think it went up to $.35. It was cheaper for students. I know that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How much was popcorn?
MR. COPELAND: Popcorn was a dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Cokes?
MR. COPELAND: Didn’t have Cokes. They had a drink machine. They put three cans of orange juice, and they would add water to it. They had a mixture of stirred things. So you had orange juice and popcorn, which that’s a really good combination.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever attend any event at the Wildcat Den?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, not events, but just drop in like the other kids would. We would fraternize with other guys and gals you went to school with. We would shoot pool and play other games. Primarily pool was a big thing with the boys.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the Wildcat Den located?
MR. COPELAND: Right there in Grove Center, bordering on the Turnpike. I forget what it’s called today. By the way, after – before it was the Wildcat Den, it was a name I’m sure that you remember because you’ve done a lot of history. At one time it was called Club Fiesta. At Club Fiesta, they sold soft drinks and ice cream, cookies and so forth. I don’t think it was the Club Fiesta for very long. That was prior to the Wildcat Den.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s them, Middletown Community Center.
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, Middletown Community Center – that’s exactly what it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s the name today. Do you remember a particular individual that kind of looked after the Wildcat Den?
MR. COPELAND: I do – Shep Lauter. What a great guy he was. Here’s one man keeping everything under control – a whole bunch of sometimes-kind-of-wild high school kids. Shep was a mild, meek guy who wore a hat most of the time because he was bald. He was a very mild, meek guy. You got some football guy or some guy who thought he was tough who started a little controversy, and I remember this distinctly – Shep would just walk up to the guy, put his hand on his shoulder, and say very softly, “Now Son, we can’t have that here, and if you can’t do better I’m going to send you home and won’t allow you to come back for a while.” He could tame the wild guy, not even raising his voice – just patting him on the shoulder. He was a great guy. Everybody loved him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was noted for smoking a pipe, too.
MR. COPELAND: He always had a pipe – always had his pipe. I don’t think I ever saw him without the pipe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about the mud in the early days of Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: Some of it had been pretty well taken care of. At about the time we got here – Oak Ridge started about October 1942, and within a year or so to time, they had made remarkable progress. There was still mud. We had sidewalks at the time I got here. It was not that big of a problem – not like it was a year before we got here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have a radio?
MR. COPELAND: We had a radio. We had a very small radio.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you listen to the radio very much?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, all the time. You didn’t have any other kind of entertainment. Of course I like to listen to the Lone Ranger and The Shadow and the scary program called Inner Sanctum. We listened to all those programs. It was just like watching TV, except you had no video.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the name of the Shadow – who he was?
MR. COPELAND: Lamont Cranston.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I never will forget that name. How about playgrounds at the school? In your younger years, did you attend any playground or activities at the schools?
MR. COPELAND: Not very much. A lot of times we did live close enough to the school to do that. We always had to walk, and I didn’t have a bicycle until I was probably 16. There wasn’t a lot of playground activity.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Other than the cowboy movie stars, were there any other movie stars that you liked?
MR. COPELAND: All cowboys. Cowboys or nothing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about the gate opening in March 1949?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t remember a lot of it. I remember why I wasn’t there. We lived on the west end of town that time on West Bryn Mawr. West Bryn Mawr is a whole lot of way from Elza Gate. I’m guessing it must be 5 to 6 miles or longer. I wanted to go. Why did I want to go? Cowboy movie star Rod Cameron was here. These other people – I didn’t care beans about seeing these other people. I did know who they were. I wanted to go see Rod Cameron. Unfortunately there was a bus strike on. Because of the bus strike, I never got see Rod Cameron.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You missed a treat. I did.
MR. COPELAND: It seems like everybody I knew got to be there, except me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember them selling savings bonds in school?
MR. COPELAND: I remember buying savings stamps. Kids couldn’t afford a bond, but we would buy the savings stamps.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After high school – let me back up a minute. Did you ever go in and out of the gate before the gates were open?
MR. COPELAND: Very seldom. Again, we didn’t have a car. We would only go out when we went with somebody going somewhere. We didn’t have a car. It wasn’t often that we went out the gate. I would like to relate a story to you. My father was a bootlegger, you might say. Even though we lived in Oak Ridge, of course you know Oak Ridge was dry. He didn’t make whiskey, but he sold whiskey. He had an acquaintance that would go outside of Oak Ridge. This acquaintance had a large garden, and he had a car with the trailer. He would go outside of Oak Ridge to get the chicken manure from somebody’s farm to bring into fertilize his garden. The trailer he had had a false bottom. He would go out to the bootleggers and get the bottles of whiskey. He would put those bottles of whiskey in the false bottom. Then he would cover that whole trailer to the top with chicken manure. When he got to the gates, the guards did not want to get any closer to that chicken manure than I had to. So all that time that guy was transporting whiskey inside the city, he never got caught, and never got suspicion at all. He would bring it in, and he would sell it. He had my father and somebody else who would deal it out for him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about some of the shopping centers, like down at Jefferson Shopping Center, what was there?
MR. COPELAND: At the Jefferson Shopping Center, I remember they had a grocery store. My favorite spot was a drugstore because they had a great variety of comic books. I would always go in there looking for comic books. Most of the time, I was looking for Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and Hop-along Cassidy comic books. I don’t know how often they came out, but anytime I went to the Jefferson Theater, I would also stop right down from the Jefferson Theater and stop at the drugstore to see if I could find a new cowboy comic book.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have a Saturday morning program – maybe the Little Atoms at the Jefferson Theater?
MR. COPELAND: They surely did. All the kids tried to get there early if they could. The Little Atoms Club – it gave an opportunity for the kids to show off. The kids were the program. Playing an accordion, I remember back in those days it seemed like every kid took accordion lessons. I couldn’t stand the accordion, but it seemed like every kid would go out there and play the accordion. Sometimes they played it pretty well, and sometimes they would not play pretty well. Then they had the people that played the guitars, and what people would think they could do the dancer thing. But anyway, that was entertainment. It was neat. It was something to do. Back in those days, there wasn’t a whole lot to do, so that was something that the kids looked forward to – the Little Atoms Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you – how much did it cost to buy Coke? Did Cokes come in bottles in those days?
MR. COPELAND: They were a nickel. They came in bottles, and they were a nickel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about peanuts in the bag?
MR. COPELAND: Peanuts in the bag were a nickel, but often you would use one of the peanut machines that were close by. People don’t believe it today. We had penny machines back in those days where you could buy peanuts, bubblegum, and candy. Nobody could envision anyone having a penny machine. A penny’s worth of peanuts would be plenty good. Put it in the Coke and boy it tasted good. It was the salt and the sugar – the salt and the sugar and the peanuts in the Coke, really made it good. If you really wanted some excitement, back in those days you could buy Kool-Aid back in a penny pack. You put one of those packs of peanuts or Kool-Aid in one of those Cokes, and you better have it close to your mouth because are going to get it all over. It would explode, but you would think it would explode the can. You would put it up to your mouth and it would blow your jaws up. You could get it down. It was good. It was unusual.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was another form of entertainment that used to come to Oak Ridge over the years – carnivals. What you remember about carnivals?
MR. COPELAND: I remember that gambling wasn’t legalized, but that was gambling because everything was taking a chance. Of course they had this pitch man, and the pitch man would deliver a speech. It would seem like it was so desirable that you couldn’t turn it down. The one I remember more than anything else was on the west end of town. There was a field right near the Turnpike. It’s not too far from the minimart down there right now. Anyway, they had this guy in a cage, and they called him a chicken eater. I’m a chicken eater, too, but not a chicken eater like this. They would give this guy a chicken – all whole chicken, a whole live chicken. That guy would take his mouth and pull the feathers off. Then he would take apart the chicken. Of course it was a big deal to the guys, but the girls couldn’t stand it. They would be gagging and leaving. That was the big attraction – the chicken eater. He killed a chicken and ate part of the breast and so forth while it was raw. That’s what carnivals were. Things were unusual and ridiculous, but I remember another thing that was a carpenter. And this carpenter worked at the plant. And this carpenter was proud of the way he could drive nails. He could drive nails all day and never bend one. They had this place – this carny guy had this place where he had a piece of wood, and if you drove that nail through that piece of wood without bending it, then you would win a prize. This carpenter kept trying to do that, and he couldn’t do it because the nail would bend every time. I’m sure that the carny had a good sturdy regular run-of-the-mill nail, and I’m sure every time he would go to this carpenter to give him a nail, it was a fixed, rigged soft spot in the nail. The carpenter never could drive this nail. He spent every penny he had, and the carpenter had his paycheck with him. He stood right there trying to drive that nail until he signed the check over to the carny. The carny got all his money, plus his week of wages and he never did drive that nail.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much it cost to get in the carnivals?
MR. COPELAND: It was probably something like a dime for kids – probably a dime, maybe $.50 for adults.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did carnivals have rides also?
MR. COPELAND: Some of them had rides, and some of them just had games. This particular one I’m talking about – I don’t remember any rides at all. They just had games where you try to throw coins in a dish or you throw a baseball at something and win a teddy bear or that type of thing. All it is just a way to gyp the public. I guess they had some fun losing their money, but it’s not totally unlike these gambling places now. You know you’re not going to win, but they entice you to do it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I’m going to mention some places throughout the city that were here in the early days. Tell me what you remember about them. The Oak Terrace Ballroom…
MR. COPELAND: The Oak Terrace Ballroom – I never went to a dance there. I worked out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Every year they had a big dance there, where they chose, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and so forth. But that was the place – any big function that you had in town – it was the Oak Terrace Ballroom. It was the only ballroom in town. Below that ballroom of course was a bowling alley, a poolroom, a restaurant. I spent a lot of time when I got to be older in the poolroom. I used to bowl a little bit there. Roscoe Stevens owned the place. The restaurant was quite good. I remember every Thursday they had tenderloin and sweet potatoes and gravy and biscuits and honey. A lot of people went there on Thursday to get that stuff.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The homemade biscuits.
MR. COPELAND: They specialize in homemade stuff.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I know my kids looked forward to going there. How about the Snow White Drive-in?
MR. COPELAND: Gee whiz. That was the hangout back in those days. That was the only fast food place allowed. We didn’t have all these fast foods. That’s why you couldn’t make any money back in those days. Today you can make money easy. A kid today can make $500 easier then you could make $.25 back in those days because there are so many opportunities for you to go to work someplace. Snow White was one place where some of the kids in high school worked. My cousin worked there quite some time. He would make really good money. He might make five dollars a night, which was incredible back in those days. They paid $.35 an hour. You got tips. A dime was a pretty good-sized tip. A quarter was a really good tip back in those days. Everyone hung out at the drive-in. If you had a car, you would cruise around and around the place to see who you could see. We didn’t have a car, but I would get with a buddy. We would circle the place and circle the place. Snow White didn’t like that because they wanted you to land and buy something. In many cases, you had to keep driving around because all the parking places were full – consistently they were full.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the Snow White Drive-in located?
MR. COPELAND: The Snow White Drive-in was located about where the west corner of the Medical Arts Building, next to the Phillips 66 station across the street.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about the Skyway Drive-in?
MR. COPELAND: Man, the passion pit. That’s what we all called it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This is an outdoor drive-in theater.
MR. COPELAND: An outdoor drive-in theater. You would go to one of those movies. When it was over, you might remember the name of the movie. You might not remember the name of the movie. But anyway, it was a good place to go park and cuddle up and that type of thing. It was the place to go. It was so much fun. Many times they would have dollar night. Everybody would get in for a dollar. Sometimes it would be different prices. If they charged a single admission, you would always pay it and some guys in the trunk of the car try to get in. It got so after a while – if you look like that kind of guy, they would say “Let me look in your trunk.” Many times they would open the trunk, and there would be a whole bunch of guys in the trunk. They would lie on the floor board and things like this to try to slip in. It was a great place. We had a terrific time, and I probably can’t count the number of times that people drove off with a speaker hanging on their window. I don’t think the window broke, but it would snap the speaker off the thing. It was fun.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember playing bingo?
MR. COPELAND: I do. I won a lawn chair one night. They played bingo on Tuesday nights, and I won a lawn chair and a couple other things playing bingo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: If I remember right, the numbers would be called out over the PA.
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, you would sit in your car, and you would hear the people call it out, just like you see the movie. The movie sound came in in your little car in the little speaker. They would be in the building there where they sold concessions and that type of thing. They would call out the numbers. When you win, you would – toot, toot, toot – blow your horn real fast. Try to be the first one. Then you would hustle back there. If someone did it at the same time, you would hustle back there so you would beat them. It was interesting. As you guessed, Tuesdays were slow night for restaurants or any place. That helped their business out in the middle the week. You would get people coming up on the Tuesday so they could play bingo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember that when someone would blow there horn because they had a bingo, then everybody would start blowing there horn.
MR. COPELAND: The first person to blow, everyone else would chime in. Maybe they were celebrating the victory.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You graduated from high school, where did you go to further your education?
MR. COPELAND: I graduated from Oak Ridge in 1953. Back to the same old thing, we never had any money. After I was out of school, the second semester I went to Carson-Newman. Then the next year I saved money and went for a full year. Then the next year, I didn’t have any money, so I had to work for a semester. I went back the second semester. Finally I got to the point where I would have to go back the second semester again, and I had the courses. There was nothing else I could take. I would have to work another year. Of course having no encouragement from home, I got discouraged and did not finish.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back up a minute. I know that you were on the high school track team that won the state championship. Is that correct? Tell me about that.
MR. COPELAND: That’s correct. Unfortunately for me, it was near the second or third week of track. In the long jump, I tore my ACL. Even though I was on the team – the championship team – I did not get to participate in the state championship because of that injury. I was injured most of the season.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they hold the state championship?
MR. COPELAND: My junior year – I failed to qualify for the state, just barely failed to qualify. That year it was held at Oak Ridge. That was the first school year with a new high school with her current high school. It was 1952, and that was the first school year for the current high school – the 1951-52 year. Somehow – I don’t know how Ben Martin pulled it off, but he talked them into having the state track meet here. The track hadn’t been finished very long, and I’m not sure they knew if that track was going to be ready. That was a major accomplishment for Ben Martin to pull off – to have the track meet here. My senior year it was held in Memphis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the track made out of cinders?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, it was cinders. A lot of people don’t know about cinders today because they’re paved with Tartan tour or whatever they paved them with. It’s really nice now. Back in those days, it was cinders. Of course any of the events held back in those days wouldn’t come close to the event today. You might run 10.1. Today they might run it in 9.5 because of the track conditions are so much better. One thing I remember more than anything else is the hurdle events. If you’ve seen the hurdle, so many times those guys that are hurdlers and they fall. I’m sure that after 50 years, some little guy still has those cylinders or cinders in their legs because they would get all bloody and he picked those things out. Some get so deep, you just leave them in there I think. That was a problem with the cinder. Of course in bad weather, it was just terrible – sloppy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe what the track shoe looked like when you were a runner.
MR. COPELAND: The track shoe – it had long spikes on it back in those days. They don’t need them today. You need of those long spikes to dig into the cinders to make sure you had good traction. But we, I’ll tell you if you happen be running the relay when this happened, you would be running a relay and you get too close to some guy, and he would jab those – accidentally of course – jab those spikes in you. You were injured pretty well. It hurt. They were long.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you went to Carson-Newman, where did you go from there?
MR. COPELAND: After Carson-Newman, I went to work – I worked at the theaters quite some time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Which theater?
MR. COPELAND: I worked at the Grove Theater. It was the best job I ever had. They didn’t make any money though. I loved it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your job?
MR. COPELAND: Whatever – doorman, usher, popcorn maker. You are expected to do everything. I changed the marquee. That was no fun. You changed the marquee in the pouring down rain or ice cold, but you had to change it anyway. Of course you change it – the movie would change on Thursday, and it changed on Wednesday night. You changed it after the movie was over. It would be pretty late at night, and you’d be up there changing that marquee by yourself. I guess if you fell, you would just lie there and die until somebody found you.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did the letters attach to the marquee?
MR. COPELAND: They were big letters, and you had a string – like a wire or rod that went across the sign. You would just hang the letters on the signs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Someone was telling me some time back that they did that, and they misspelled the word on the marquee. The lady that ran the theater told him about it, and he got there and misspelled it again. It took him three times before he ever got it right.
MR. COPELAND: When you’re up on that ladder, you think you have everything looking right. When you get down from the ladder, you think that there’s too much space. I need to do that again. What happened with a lot of – two or three times I know – it would get the “N” turned backwards. You would have to get down and look up there and climb back up again and turn that “N” around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You came back to Oak Ridge. Where were you living after Carson-Newman?
MR. COPELAND: Most of the time we lived in Oak Ridge. We had to move out of Oak Ridge when they tore those flattops down on Illinois Avenue. My parents moved to Clinton, but I never did live much in Clinton. I was going to school at the time, and then after that I got married. When we got married, we lived in a twin dwelling unit down on Lawton Road. I never really lived in Clinton. I was there a little while, I guess. Last time I counted, I think I lived at 13 different places in Oak Ridge. What makes that so strange is that in one place I lived 32 years in one house. Still, all this time I lived in 13 places in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your wife’s name?
MR. COPELAND: My first wife’s name was Saundra. Her last name was Simmons.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you meet her?
MR. COPELAND: On the paper route. That’s the one I met on the paper route.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you all married in Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: We were married in Georgia. It was very common back in those days to run off to Georgia to get married. We were married in Georgia. We eloped.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The first home you lived in when you were married, was that a TDU?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, twin dwelling unit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did that consist of?
MR. COPELAND: I believe it was a one bedroom on one end, and maybe three on the other end. We lived in the one bedroom.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a job and a car?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, I had a job, and I was working Downtown for National Shirt Shops.
MR. HUNNICUTT: As a salesperson?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, salesperson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much money you are making?
MR. COPELAND: I think I made – I believe it was $45 a week.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now when you refer to Downtown, that’s the – what we refer to as the abandoned mall today.
MR. COPELAND: The abandoned mall, but it was a very nice stand-alone shopping center and busy, busy back in those days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you and your wife have children?
MR. COPELAND: We had two children – two boys.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are their names?
MR. COPELAND: The oldest boy is Mickey. He is a Methodist minister. The youngest’s name is Lance, and he is an accountant in Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have grandchildren?
MR. COPELAND: Two grandchildren – three grandchildren. Two are grown. Sam and Leah are grown. Landon lived in Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit more about your work history after the job at the shirt store.
MR. COPELAND: I worked at National Shirt Shop. Then I went to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the mailroom. That’s the lowest job they had in the mailroom. That was a prime job back in those days. Jobs were so scarce that it was – I felt like I had gone to heaven. That was such a great job. I worked there a year, and after year I went out and did clerical work. I did mostly clerical work. Later on I was – mostly I would describe my job as purchasing. That would be the best description.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get this job in the mailroom?
MR. COPELAND: I had put an application in. The job had played out at National Shirt Shop. I was trying to get a job at X-10 or either one of the plants. National Shirt Shop – they called me back. I didn’t want to work for them, but I would have worked for anybody at that time to make some money. I didn’t want to work for them, and they had been talking to X-10. Things weren’t going – I kept waiting on them to make a decision. So when National Shirt Shop called me one day, the manager said “The district manager’s going to be in town. He wants to talk to you about coming back to work.” When that happened, I got on the phone and called back out to Personnel and said “Hey, I have a job offer. Are you guys interested in hiring me or not?” The guy says “Can you come to work tomorrow?” I said “I certainly can.”
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let’s go back a little bit. How was the city when the Downtown Shopping Center was booming? How do you remember the city? Was it prospering? How do you remember the city in those days?
MR. COPELAND: Of course I was in high school at this time. Are you talking about before I got married?
MR. HUNNICUTT: When they built Downtown about 1955.
MR. COPELAND: I think things were going great until about 1961 or so when they had a monstrous layoff at K-25. It seems like things were going pretty well at the time. When they had that big layoff at K-25, it wasn’t long before all these East Village houses came for sale. It was pretty rough for quite some time. When Downtown was first built, it seemed like things were going very, very well.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the big oak tree on the other side of the gym of the high school?
MR. COPELAND: Certainly, it was a shame to lose that tree. It was a great big oak tree and lots of leaves. There were always some kids out there – high school kids – lingering around that tree, lying down in the grass in the summer time, maybe studying a little bit and so forth. I guess it got diseased and had to be removed. It was a beautiful tree.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The story goes that when they were building the high school, they wanted to cut that oak tree down because of the water lines or something of that nature. There was a protest against it. They wanted to leave it for the students to sit under like you describe. That’s why the oak tree was saved. But when they built the new addition to the high school, there was no way to save it.
MR. COPELAND: I didn’t know when it was cut down, but the school was a nice backdrop behind that tree. It was such a pretty tree. There was another one down on the Roane County and Anderson County line. There used to be some political rallies and things like that – local political rallies and so forth. They had a big tree down there. I think probably they had the meeting there because they had that big tree. There was no air-conditioning or anything. I think that’s one of the reasons they had the meeting there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Very well could be. You have written some books on cowboy Western stars. Tell me about that.
MR. COPELAND: I was always interested in cowboys as a youngster. I didn’t have a good role model at home, so the cowboys were my role model. I didn’t want to be like my father. I wanted to be like one of the cowboys because they did everything that was morally right. It was just wonderful. I hope I patterned my life after the cowboys. My interest in cowboys laid dormant for about 35 years until one Saturday I turned on the local PBS station to a guy that was Marshall Andy – Riders of the Silver Screen. He was showing a cowboy movie. That’s just brought my interest back just like that. I got really interested. I contacted Marshall Andy. Since that time, I’ve been on the show about 50 times. One thing led to another, and I was writing little articles. About 1986 or 1996, I was approached by a publisher – the largest publisher in the world of movie cowboy books. They said “What you do, I think you could do a good book.” I thought “Me do a book?” I just tried to ease through high school and I had very little English or anything else or Math or anything else just trying to get through. He approached me about this, and I thought I couldn’t do it. The more I thought about it, what can I lose, I can try it. So I wrote my first book. It was published in 1996. The guy said, “You got another book in you?” I said, “I don’t know, maybe. I’ll think of something.” So I did another one, and he kept coming back – “You got another book? You think you can do another one? We’re having good success here.” I said “Okay, I’ll see what’s going on.” To make a long story short, I’ve written 22 movie books. I’ll say this as modestly as I know how: I’m the number one author in the world of movie cowboy books.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Name some of the books.
MR. COPELAND: “Roy Rogers,” “Bob Steele,” “Wild Bill Elliott,” “Charles Starrett,” “Best of the Bad Men,” “Trail Talk,” “Silent Hoof Beats,” a bunch of them, “B Western Boothill,” which has been my bestseller.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you talk about B Westerns, what does that mean?
MR. COPELAND: B stands for the budget. It’s low budget. These were the Saturday what they called programmers. They were about an hour long – read at an hour long. They were primarily designed for juveniles, and you would go to the movie and have the cowboy movie and a cartoon and then a serial, (which is a short continued each month or each week, for about 12 to 15 weeks). That’s what a serial was and it was primarily for the youngsters. The theater was pretty much crowded on Saturday. But the thing about it is, people look down on these things now, but they made such an impression. A lot of people got their moral training from these movies. They taught you what was right from wrong. They taught you the golden rule. I got all my upbringing – I’m not perfect, but I’d be far less perfect if it hadn’t been for these B-Western movies.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Have you remarried since your first wife?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, my first wife died in 1975. I met this lady where I worked, and remarkably she had a similar summer job in a different division. We had a lot of things in common. One thing led to another, and we started dating. We married in 1976. We’ve been very, very happy. She is a precious lady. To me, she’s the best lady in the world. I’m sure many people think that about their wives, but I think mine is the greatest.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is her name?
MR. COPELAND: Her name is Joan.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you all have any children?
MR. COPELAND: We did not have any children. Both my children are from my first wife. Joan is just like the mother to my youngest child because we got married when he was six. Really, she is about the only – with all the hospitalizations and so forth with my first wife, Joan is the only mother really that he knows. He loves her dearly, and my oldest son respects her greatly.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you all belong to any clubs or organizations?
MR. COPELAND: We do not. We are active in church – the Central Baptist Church here in Oak Ridge. I’ve served as a deacon. One son is a deacon, and the other son is a minister.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything that we hadn’t talked about that you would like to talk about?
MR. COPELAND: I can’t think of anything. We just about covered everything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: One thing that comes to mind that I’ve been told – maybe you did this and didn’t. During the days of the wooden boardwalks – of course, there were spaces between the boards. People would wait in certain places to catch buses. I’ve heard about guys taking a stick, putting bubblegum on the end of the stick and sticking it down through the cracks to get the money or change that was dropped. Did you ever do that?
MR. COPELAND: I never did that. I have heard of people doing that. Of course if you drop the change down there, that’s the only way to get it. Some of them have pretty good openings, where if you get a small stick of bubblegum down there, you might have a rat grab the stick. Those things were huge. I can’t impress on you how big those things were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How have you seen the city prosper over the years since you’ve been here?
MR. COPELAND: I’ve seen it prosper to a point. It hasn’t prospered in my view in many years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you think – why is it stalled out?
MR. COPELAND: We are totally dependent on the government for the biggest thing. We aren’t getting enough money from them, like Alcoa. The city of Alcoa gets from Alcoa. The motor companies used to pour into the cities. The average person outside of Oak Ridge thinks we are getting all kinds of money from the government. If this was not the government, if these were individual businesses – if these plants were individual businesses, we would get far more revenue in taxes and so forth than we are getting from the federal government. That’s been one thing. Where there used to be lots of – it seemed like back in the old days you didn’t have to have a lot of things to do to entertain the youngsters. I don’t think we have that today. I don’t know of the youngsters participating because we have so many video games and computers and so forth. But the town has gotten old. You drive down the street and all you see is gray-haired people. When I was growing up, it was a very young town. The average age was probably 35 or less. You could always find kids to play with. They were all over the place. Now that’s not the case. Everybody here is grandparents now. The town has gotten old. I don’t know if we will ever come back. I’m afraid it won’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you like best about Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: I like it because it’s not crime-free, but it’s not like some places you go to. It’s a small city. It’s not like New York or even Charlotte or Chattanooga or Knoxville. You are free to move around, and you feel relatively safe here. Unfortunately, the shopping has deteriorated to the point that new people have to leave town now to buy things. That’s a real negative thing. The school system is still good. It’s rated among the best. We have a marvelous high school. I don’t think we have much else that we can showcase to lure people to the city.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So the city is still a secret city?
MR. COPELAND: That’s kind of a sore spot with me – the Secret City. We were the Atomic City for years and years. Oak Ridge would have clubs, and every club in here was the Atomic City Beagle Club, Stamp Club, Atomic Coin Club. You name it. Now it seems like atomic has a bad taste to it to most people. What gets me is that our city has given into this, and we have become not the Atomic City anymore. We are the Secret City. I don’t like it. I really don’t like it. I know we were the secret city in the beginning, but I don’t think we were ever known as a secret city – even though we had secret things going on here. I don’t think we were really ever known as a secret city. This is caught on big in the last few years. Now we have a car dealership and everything you can think of. It’s Secret City. They don’t want the Atomic City tied to the place anymore. That’s unfortunate.
MR. HUNNICUTT: One last question. What’s the most amazing thing you have seen in your lifetime?
MR. COPELAND: I can’t think of anything. Can you name a few events?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Going to the moon.
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, is there anything greater than that? During my lifetime, we dropped the atomic bomb. That was a big thing. That put Oak Ridge on the map. Like I said before, that’s what we were known for. Now it’s as if we are ashamed that we did this. Going to the moon was one of the biggest things. By the way, there are people who don’t believe we went to the moon. My mother was always one of them. She said “I will never believe that we went to the moon.” I thought that was pretty funny, but I think we did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bob, it’s been my pleasure to interview you. I thank you for your time. This is your recount of growing up in Oak Ridge. It’s a history that will be part of Oak Ridge history. Maybe one day some young student will be doing a research paper on Oak Ridge history, and pull up your interview and take from your interview some of the things that you said and how you described living in Oak Ridge and put it in their paper.
MR. COPELAND: Wouldn’t that be terrific?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Again, thank you very much for your time.
MR. COPELAND: I appreciate it so much.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Copeland’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]

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ORAL HISTORY OF BOBBY COPELAND
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
December 21, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is December 21, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Bobby Copeland, 104 Claremont Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take his oral history about living in Oak Ridge. Bobby, please state your full name, place of birth, and date.
MR. COPELAND: Bobby James Copeland; January 13, 1935; Flintville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Please state your father’s name, place of birth, and date.
MR. COPELAND: Andrew Jackson Copeland; also Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the date?
MR. COPELAND: December 12, 1912.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your mother’s maiden name and place of birth and date?
MR. COPELAND: Estelle McCreary; birthdate July 29, 1917.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what your father school history consisted of?
MR. COPELAND: I would guess about fourth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother’s?
MR. COPELAND: Probably sixth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know what the school name was that they attended?
MR. COPELAND: No idea.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have brothers and sisters?
MR. COPELAND: I have four brothers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are their names?
MR. COPELAND: Joe, Ben, Jack, and John.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do they live in the area?
MR. COPELAND: Joe and Jack live in the area. Ben lives in Florida. John lives in Maryland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of work did your father do?
MR. COPELAND: It was construction electrician – a lineman.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother work?
MR. COPELAND: No, she did not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What brought your family to Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: Dad had a relative who worked here, and this relative told him that they needed some electricians. He came up here and went to work for J.A. Jones on construction.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was the family living at that time?
MR. COPELAND: In Flintville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is Flintville?
MR. COPELAND: It’s in the south-central part of Tennessee near Fayetteville about 20 miles from the Alabama line.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the whole family come when your father did?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get here?
MR. COPELAND: Someone came and got us and brought us in a truck. The truck had a covered bed in it. Me, my father and one of my brothers rode in the back, and mother and brothers rode in the front.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you when you got to Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: I think I was nine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year was that?
MR. COPELAND: 1944 – October.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about your school history before Oak Ridge.
MR. COPELAND: I went to three grades in Flintville, Tennessee. We moved up here, and of course, I started in fourth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the school that you attended in Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: The first school was Wheat – The New Wheat School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where that was located?
MR. COPELAND: Just on the extreme west edge of Oak Ridge. I was very young.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that toward the K-25 site?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, near K-25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going to the Wheat School? Can you remember how the school set?
MR. COPELAND: No, I cannot. The only thing I remember is we were very, very poor, and I knew we would get a choice. I remember distinctly. In our class we got a glass of milk – a little container of milk – very small when it came in glass jars. I don’t know who paid for the milk, but we got milk each day, and I got chocolate milk. That’s the first time I ever tasted chocolate milk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was your family living at that time?
MR. COPELAND: In what we called Happy Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of home was that?
MR. COPELAND: We lived in a trailer, a green trailer. Everything was green back in those days – green and gray. Now, this wasn’t a trailer that you hook to a truck and pulled down the road. It was squarer. It was very, very small. In that trailer we had five boys – my mother, my dad, and my grandmother. We were on top of each other almost all the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your father walk to work? Did he work at the K-25 facility?
MR. COPELAND: He worked it J.A. Jones. I’m assuming it was down there. No, he carpooled. We did not have a car. He got a ride with someone. Let’s put it that way.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How far was the school from where you lived?
MR. COPELAND: It was in walking distance, and I would guess three quarters of a mile.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any activities you do during the summer time and Happy Valley?
MR. COPELAND: No, like all boys back in those days, we played Cowboys and Indians. We would make kites and fly the kite. We couldn’t afford to buy them, so we made our own kites and flew them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you make the kites out of?
MR. COPELAND: Newspaper and reeds from the woods.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think you told me one time that it was kind of difficult to find your way home sometimes. Was that true? How did you know where you lived?
MR. COPELAND: We came from the sticks – very, very far back in the sticks. We started the school at Wheat. Okay, these trailers were laid out in lines, and there were no markers – no trees or flowers or anything like this. If I could’ve cut cattycorner across going to my house, it would’ve been much shorter. But I was afraid I might not find the right trailer, so I would take the long way and go straight down the line, come to that particular road, and count the street numbers until I got up to my trailer. We lived at block 42, trailer seven.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What kind of surface were the roads in the trailers?
MR. COPELAND: These were paved that I walked on. Of course, there wasn’t much pavement in those days, but these were paved.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what the inside of the trailer look like?
MR. COPELAND: I really don’t. The only thing I know is we didn’t have much room.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to go outside the trailer to use the bathroom?
MR. COPELAND: We did. It was across the street and not too far.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Community-type bathhouses?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about washing clothes?
MR. COPELAND: Same thing. They had a wash house, and Mother would take the clothes over there and wash them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the trailer have any running water inside?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t recall, but I’m sure it must have. I just don’t recall it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a rec center at the Happy Valley community. Did you ever attend that?
MR. COPELAND: No, I was too young.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did the family live in this particular area?
MR. COPELAND: We were there probably around a year. We lived at three different places in Gamble Valley. The reason we lived at three different places – this was the extreme west end of town. At that time, the government was closing out. The war just got over, and they were closing out the trailers. So they started at the extreme west end of Oak Ridge and moved the trailers out. We moved into Gamble Valley, which was then west Oak Ridge. We moved in the west end of Gamble Valley. It wasn’t long until they moved out to the west end of Gamble Valley. So we moved in to the center of Gamble Valley, just a couple months later. They move those trailers out. Then we moved into the east end of Gamble Valley. It wasn’t long before they move those out. Then we moved into a trailer in Grove Center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now all these trailers that you lived in – where they furnished?
MR. COPELAND: I believe they were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You just brought your own belongings and kept moving?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember anything about living in Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: I remember my playmates. We had a good time. One thing – I don’t know if you would be interested to hear – as they took the trailers out, they would leave the electrical wire hanging outside the trailer. We had a little hut, and we got the bright idea that it would be nice if that hut had electric lights. We got us a lamp and took part of the cord off that. We went to one of the trailers and cut some of the electrical cord up there. We put this wire together, and then we opened one of the windows to one of the trailers and plugged it in. We had electric lights in our hut – until the mother saw the plug in the wall, and electric light didn’t last very long. Fortunately, we did not get electrocuted.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of games did you play when you lived in the trailer camp?
MR. COPELAND: We played Cowboys and Indians, and we rolled tires. That was big, big back in those days. You would get a tire, and you would roll it down the road. We would have races against our friends about who could push the tire the fastest, them or us. We played those tires a lot. Back then, all the boys played Cowboys and Indians. We played Cowboys all the time. This was even before we got interested in sports. There weren’t any organized sports back in those days, and we didn’t play many sports. We might kick a ball around or something like this, play kick the can, or hide and seek; but that’s just about the extent of it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any milk deliveries coming into the trailer camps?
MR. COPELAND: We surely did. As you would guess, with that many people – the five kids, and mother and dad, and grandmother – we got quite a bit of milk. Of course we would leave the milkman a note, and he would leave the milk on the front steps. It worked out very well until we got milk that the cows had eaten onions or even bitter weeds; and then you just put the milk back out there and let them know that they’re going to take this milk back next time and give us credit because we couldn’t drink it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about ice, was in there ice delivery, too?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t recall getting ice delivered. I’m sure it was, but I just don’t remember it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how the trailers were heated?
MR. COPELAND: I believe it was oil. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I think it was. Bear in mind that I was nine or 10 years old, and the only thing I was interested in was eating and sleeping and playing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What school did you attend when you were living in Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: I went to Gamble Valley. I’ve had a lot of arguments from people who say, “You didn’t go to Gamble Valley.” I did, too. I know several other people in Oak Ridge at that time that went to Gamble Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why were they arguing about not going to Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: Because it became a black school. They say, “You couldn’t have gone there because it was all for blacks.” Before it was for blacks, it was for the whites. Later, it became a school for the blacks.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You are correct. There was a Gamble Valley school for the kids in the trailer camp.
MR. COPELAND: Yes, there was. You have photos of it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Absolutely. Where did the family move to after Gamble Valley?
MR. COPELAND: We moved to Grove Center on Robin Lane. Here’s another interesting story. Some lady called me one time and we got to talking. She said she lived on Robin Lane. I said that I used to live on Robin Lane. She said, “You did? When did you live there?” I said, “When it was a trailer court.” She said, “Oh no, there were never trailers on Robin Lane. There were only houses, and we bought one of the first houses that were built here.” You know, you can’t argue with someone like that. I knew that I lived on Robin Lane. My cousin lived right around the corner in that Grove Center trailer court. As you know, it was a trailer court before there were houses there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: She must’ve thought it was flattop-type housing.
MR. COPELAND: She didn’t even think it was flattop houses. She just insisted that her house was the first one ever there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: She’s mistaken. That’s for sure. When you lived on Robin Lane, what school did you attend?
MR. COPELAND: I still went to Gamble Valley for the rest of the year – the rest of the sixth grade. Then the government closed out the trailer camp in Grove Center. So we had to move again. We moved down to the west end of town in a flattop on West Bryn Mawr.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were living on Robin Lane, and went to Gamble Valley school – how did you get to school?
MR. COPELAND: Bus. They had buses to come by there and pick us up for the rest of the year going to Gamble Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you knew which bus to get on?
MR. COPELAND: I do not know. I guess it was the only one that came by.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about memories of attending Gamble Valley School. Do you remember some of the classes you took?
MR. COPELAND: It was just the typical grammar school, where classes are – it all runs together. You had one year one class all day. You have Art and Music and whatever else. That’s what we had, and it was a lot of fun. I made some good friends. The only thing I remember distinctly about it was that one guy lived in Mexico. This was about the fifth grade we were in, and we were studying Mexico. He decided that he would be a Good Samaritan and make us some chili and hot chocolate. It sounded really good and he brought it in. When he brought it in, he probably made the chili like the Mexicans like it. It was super-hot. We were 11 and 12 years old. We would eat that chili, and then we would have to have something to drink because it was killing us. Well, the hot chocolate was scalding hot, and every kid in the building got a burned mouth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any of your teachers’ names?
MR. COPELAND: It seemed like we had one named Mrs. Pettis. I believe that was her name. I don’t remember the other one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After attending Gamble Valley School, what was your next school that you attended?
MR. COPELAND: We went – again, we moved down on Bryn Mawr, and from there I went to Robertsville. It’s there now, but it’s not the same building. We went to Robertsville, and we caught a bus from the west end of town to the Robertsville Junior High.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You are speaking of the original Robertsville School?
MR. COPELAND: The original Robertsville School. Let me back up. It was the Robertsville community, but it was the Jefferson Junior High School at the time. And they moved the Jefferson Junior High school to the east end of Oak Ridge now, but when I went there it was Jefferson Junior High. Let me correct myself.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In the old Robertsville…
MR. COPELAND: In the old Robertsville building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Can you describe what that building looked like?
MR. COPELAND: No. I don’t remember a whole lot about it. I remember the gym and some of the classrooms, and I remember the two-story building that set up next to one of the roads. The good thing about that building was the fire escape. We loved that fire escape. If you are on the second floor, you had the chance to use it every time we had a fire drill. It was really fun. We wanted to have one every day if we could. As you would guess, all the boys gathered at the foot of the fire escape.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the fire escape.
MR. COPELAND: It was a chute. It was a chute connected to the building. You would go, and they would open the door. You would get in the chute and slide down it – just like a slide. Every kid back in those days loved to slide. We loved to fly down that chute. It was metal, and the boys would congregate at the bottom to watch the girls slide down, hoping their dresses would go up over their head.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that an opened chute, or was it inside a silo affair?
MR. COPELAND: It was a silo affair on the outside of the building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How often did you have fire drills?
MR. COPELAND: There must not have been about four a year probably.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The house you lived on West Bryn Mawr. What type of house was that?
MR. COPELAND: Flattop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What does a flattop look like inside?
MR. COPELAND: This was a two-bedroom flattop, and it was pretty plain inside. We had a big coal burning stove, and the appliances were furnished. The refrigerator was small. The stove was small. Everything had to be small to fit inside this. Again, this was a two-bedroom flattop, and we still had eight people living in the two-bedroom flattop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you manage that? How was the sleeping arranged?
MR. COPELAND: In one bedroom, we had one bed for my grandmother, which would be a twin bed. Then butting up against that against one wall would be a double bed where two brothers slept. On the end of her bed would be another twin bed, and I had that twin bed by myself. Then my two brothers slept in the living room on the couch. It was crowded.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what type of heat the flattop had?
MR. COPELAND: It had a coal burning stove.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you get the coal?
MR. COPELAND: The coal was delivered by the government or Roane-Anderson – whoever ran the city at that time. They delivered the coal.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they put the coal?
MR. COPELAND: There was a coal box out at everybody’s house. The thing about these coal boxes – they were pretty ugly. And for some reason, it seemed like that’s where everybody went to have their photo made – sitting on the coal box. I don’t know why they chose that because it was probably about the ugliest place that one could get.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of sidewalks did you have at the flattop?
MR. COPELAND: We had wooden sidewalks at the flattop. Let me back up. When we lived in Gamble Valley, we had wooden sidewalks. But the wooden sidewalks looked like they were about two-by-six tall. My vivid memory is that the rats – I’m not talking about mice. I’m talking about rats. These rats would dig under those sidewalks, and if you walked on the sidewalks, you could hear a rat running underneath you as you walked on the sidewalk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were going to Jefferson and Robertsville, do you recall some of your teachers’ names?
MR. COPELAND: I recall one distinctly – Mrs. Walsh, a wonderful lady. I guess everyone has one teacher in their background, which really stands out in their memory. She was a wonderful lady I surmise that she was a strong Christian individual. I never asked her, but the way she lived and the way she talked and acted, made me think that. I know in the eighth grade I had Miss Fillers. In the ninth grade I had Mr. Slusher.
MR. HUNNICUTT: These teachers – what would you suspect their ages would be at that time?
MR. COPELAND: When you are 13 years old, it’s very difficult to tell. Mrs. Walsh had gray hair, and I would guess she was in her 50s. Miss Fillers I would guess was probably in her mid-30s, and Mr. Slusher was an older individual. I would guess he was pushing 60.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports in junior high?
MR. COPELAND: Only in intramurals.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Explained to me what that means.
MR. COPELAND: If you don’t play for one of the main teams – the varsity teams, then they have what they call intramurals where you can participate in sports, but you won’t earn a letter and it won’t be highly organized. You won’t have practices and things like this.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was Nick Orlando one of the coaches?
MR. COPELAND: Oh my gracious. Nick Orlando was one of the coaches. Nick Orlando was one of the lead characters in Oak Ridge history. I mean that in the nicest sense of the word. Everyone knew Nick Orlando. Everyone knew the guy, and everyone was crazy about him. He knew everybody not only in the school systems, but almost everybody in Oak Ridge. He was a real character.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was Bob Stuhmiller down there as well?
MR. COPELAND: Bob Stuhmiller was there. He was a very quiet gentle man, and he coached basketball and track.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember different about attending junior high versus elementary school?
MR. COPELAND: They were totally different because you had various classes and rooms that you went to for different things. Like for Physical Education, Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation. In grammar school, you had them all in one class all day long.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the grammar school in Gamble Valley have a cafeteria?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t think it was big, but I do not know. We lived close enough that I went home for lunch. I don’t think that would be allowed today. I went home for lunch. I was probably about 12, and each day I went to lunch. I don’t think that they allowed that today. I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about at Jefferson Junior High – did they have a cafeteria?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, they did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you eat in the cafeteria?
MR. COPELAND: No, I carried my lunch. We couldn’t afford it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You left Jefferson and went to the high school. Where was the high school located?
MR. COPELAND: The high school was located at Jackson Square. Later on that became Jefferson Junior. I went there my junior year, and then my senior year I went to the current high school where it’s located now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what did you see different when you went to high school versus junior high?
MR. COPELAND: It was much more intense. Things were I thought better organized, and we had more time to devote to particular studies and that type of thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were the courses that you took in school difficult for you? What type of student were you?
MR. COPELAND: You have to bear in mind that my parents had no education – or very little education. They had no way of leading me or instructing me. I was a typical boy, I would say. I just took the easiest classes I could get to get out of there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports in high school?
MR. COPELAND: I did. I participated in sports. I was on the track team for two years under Coach Ben Martin – a very memorable time because Coach Martin was a wonderful gentleman.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In junior high school, during Physical Education, were the students required to take showers in those days?
MR. COPELAND: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was kind of a new adventure for you, I would say.
MR. COPELAND: It was because we hadn’t taken a lot of showers in Gamble Valley and previous places where we lived. This was a real experience; it was a pretty good deal. When people had to take a bath at my house, I did not take a bath. Everybody lined up to take baths, and I had had mine at school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have Physical Education every day?
MR. COPELAND: I believe we did in junior high school. I had Nick Orlando.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about being on the track team. What did you do when you were on the track team?
MR. COPELAND: I was a high jumper and a long jumper. It was good to be with those people. I had never been on a team before, so that meant a lot to me to have teammates. Of course to have a coach like Ben Martin was a real bonus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What made you decide to be on the track team?
MR. COPELAND: One day some guys were out jumping – high jumping, and I just was hanging around I guess. I thought maybe I would try that. In fact, this was in ninth grade. I finally found this out. After they got through jumping, I found that I could out jump them all. I had no idea. You don’t know what you can do until you try something. I didn’t know I could jump or how high I could jump or run that there or anything else. It just so happened that I happened to be the best that day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember Ben Martin when you had him in Physical Education. He would make the students do certain things related to track events. That way he could pick out some of his people for track.
MR. COPELAND: He would. He would have races and broad jumps and long jumps and stuff like this. In a lot of cases, like I was talking about jumping – in a lot of cases, you might not realize you are fast until you run against somebody and keep beating people. Ben Martin would come up to you and say “I would like to have you on my team. Would you consider going up for track?” Some did, and some didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the best thing that you liked about Ben Martin?
MR. COPELAND: He was a gentleman. That very much impressed me. My father was anything but a gentleman, so I hadn’t been around very many gentlemen. Martin was one of the most gentlemanly fellows. He was kind and considerate. He did not use foul language. He was well respected by not only the students, but the teachers as well. I think the thing that impressed me more than anything else was he was a man to look up to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes that you did take in high school?
MR. COPELAND: I took the easiest classes I could take. That was a mistake. I had no guidance at home. No one ever asked me if I had homework or what classes I was taking this year. I was never asked those questions. “Did you study your homework tonight? Did you have any homework?” I was never asked those questions – never. Most of the time, I just took the easiest classes I could take.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you belong to any clubs or organizations?
MR. COPELAND: I belong to the Letter Men’s Club and the Stamp Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the Letter Men’s Club. What did that consist of?
MR. COPELAND: Of course you had to earn a letter in one of the sports. If you accomplished so much in a particular sport, you would be awarded a school letter with an Oak Ridge OR and a nice sweater to go along with it. Once you earned one of those letters, then you are eligible to join the Letter Men’s Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Could freshman or juniors – didn’t matter what grade you were in to earn a letter?
MR. COPELAND: No. It did not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did the student know that they were doing what they needed to do to earn a letter?
MR. COPELAND: Usually in football you had to participate in so many quarters. I’m assuming in basketball it would be so many quarters. In track it would be so many points. In baseball, I don’t know how they measured in baseball, but I guess their coach would determine on his own if you played enough that he thought you deserved a letter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the other club you were in?
MR. COPELAND: The Stamp Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did that meet after school?
MR. COPELAND: It met after school – yes, it did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On the school property?
MR. COPELAND: On the school property.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about collecting stamps. I know you don’t just take them off the letters and put them in a book.
MR. COPELAND: That’s how you get started. Usually if you are serious about it, it advances from there when you go to the post office and by every new issue of stamp you can get. Sometimes there was a whole sheet of stamps you would get. It depended on what type of stamps you are collecting. Maybe you were collecting foreign stamps, if that’s the case, [inaudible] the stamp. It was something new. Almost every boy had a collection of some kind – arrowheads, coins, stamps, or they chased butterflies. It seemed like girls didn’t have any collections, but boys always had to be collecting something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summer days in between school years, what did you do for fun?
MR. COPELAND: We would try to find a ball field someplace. Let me rephrase that – we would try to find a field, not a ball field, but a field – any place that had some space. Of course we would play softball. We would play softball. We would start about nine in the morning and play until lunch; come back after we ate lunch; go back to the ball field and play again. We would play. We would ride bicycles if we had one. Pretty much that’s what we did all summer – play softball. In the wintertime, hopefully one of our buddies would have a basketball goal, and we could go over there and shoot basketball. Of course we would play touch football. That was a big thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit the swimming pool very much?
MR. COPELAND: I didn’t visit the swimming pool very much. I never liked water, and I sunburn very easily. I didn’t visit very much. That pool back then was so cold that once you went in the pool if you got out, the chances are you wouldn’t get back in. It was just too cold. It was spring-fed, and it was icy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It’s that way today, too.
MR. COPELAND: Believe me, it’s much warmer today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about the skating rink at Jefferson?
MR. COPELAND: I never skated, but I liked to go down there because they had great music. They had music like you would hear at a carnival or something. I wouldn’t want to go to the skating rinks today. Last time I went there they were playing heavy rock ‘n roll and stuff like this. But they played beautiful music to skate by. They played music where you could get skates and dance to the music. You can’t dance to that music on skates today, I don’t think. The music just kind of flowed with the skaters, and I used to love to see that and watch the skaters. I never tried to skate, but I love to watch the skaters.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a gentleman that played the organ there that made the music.
MR. COPELAND: That’s what I like – that organ music. I love that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit the American Museum of Atomic Energy?
MR. COPELAND: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about that?
MR. COPELAND: Nothing, except getting that irradiated dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think everybody remembers that, and that’s it. Did you ever see the Van de Graaff, where the hair stands up?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t recall that. I was pretty young at the time. I only visited there I think one time. I was probably about 13. I just ambled through the building and didn’t know what I was looking for, and just found the dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do for spending money?
MR. COPELAND: I didn’t have any spending money. This was the roughest thing. Of course I was really into the cowboy movies back then, which every boy went to the cowboy movies. That was the thing to do. I remember I would start begging on Wednesday, “Can I have a dime to go to the movie on Saturday?” If I was lucky, I would get a dime, but I didn’t get to go a whole lot because I wouldn’t get a dime. When I got a paper route, I felt like I was rich. I was probably making about $3.50 a week. Not only did I feel rich, I felt independent. I felt like I didn’t have to depend on anybody else. I could buy my own candy. I could go to the movies when I wanted to. I could go to doubles or whatever else. I really felt rich. I’m sure I made less than four dollars a week, but I really felt rich.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of paper route was it?
MR. COPELAND: I started off with that [Knoxville] Journal. Then later on I graduated – I say graduated to the [Knoxville News] Sentinel. The Journal had probably I would guess 25 percent of the circulation that the Sentinel had when you got a Journal route, you had a tremendous amount of walking and a few customers. I didn’t like the people who ran the Journal. I didn’t think they were honorable people, especially the route manager I had. I didn’t think he was an honorable guy. But when I went to work the Sentinel, I found they were very honorable and straight shooters. Your route was probably one third as long, and it had maybe twice as many customers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do remember how many customers you had?
MR. COPELAND: I think the most I had was pushing 50.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get the money for the newspaper? You had customers, and they paid you. How did you go about getting the money?
MR. COPELAND: I would – the paper was $.35 a week and I believe I got $.12. I would get the money, and I would get my paper bill, and I would pay my paper bill. I would keep the money that I was allowed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you would go to each customer and collect money from them?
MR. COPELAND: Every Friday, you collected for the paper. If you are fortunate enough to find everybody home…
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did, you remember who paid and who didn’t pay?
MR. COPELAND: You had a little route book, and you would mark it in your little route book each time someone paid.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned the route manager. Do you remember who the route managers were?
MR. COPELAND: I do. The route manager for the Sentinel was Mr. Huffaker, and the one for the Journal was Mr. Smith. I think Guy Smith may have owned the Journal back in those days. This was probably one of his relatives. Anyway, they were very shyster people. I just didn’t like them at all.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you are living on West Bryn Mawr at this time?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, and then later on I still had the paper route when I got another paper route when I moved to Illinois Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house did the family move into on Illinois?
MR. COPELAND: Back again, remember as I told you when they started moving the trailers out of the west end, they started doing the same thing with the flattops when we were on the west end. So we had to move again. We were forced to move again. We got a flattop on Illinois Avenue, which was also a two-bedroom flattop. I liked to live there because it was close to the Hilltop Market.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember when they are moving the trailers out of the flattop how they did that?
MR. COPELAND: No. I have no idea. We were gone when they moved them out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you would leave and never saw them again?
MR. COPELAND: I never saw them move one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You said living on Illinois Avenue close to Hilltop Market – why did you like that?
MR. COPELAND: They had a drugstore up there, and it had a jukebox. You could go up there – they had a soda jerk, where you could buy your ice cream over-the-counter or your sundae or soda over-the-counter. Then right next door they had a grocery store. We would go in there and buy candy. It was just a short walk from where we lived, so I enjoy that very much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a lot of neighborhood buddies?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, but not close by. I used to have to walk up to Warrior Circle. That’s where a lot of buddies lived up there – not right next door to me, but half-mile away I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how the neighborhoods were? Were the people friendly and cordial to each other?
MR. COPELAND: Very much so. Every place we ever lived the people were just as kind and pleasant. It was almost like relatives. Maybe sometimes it was better than relatives. There was no bickering going on. Everywhere we lived, it was very pleasant. As you heard this 100 times, people didn’t lock their doors. They didn’t worry about anybody stealing anything. The city was still a closed city until 1949, and it was just a wonderful time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you attended school, did you pick up on the fact that some of these kids were pretty smart?
MR. COPELAND: No, Ididn’t. When I was in high school, I noticed that more. When I was in high school, is obvious that some of these kids or youngsters were very bright. There was no question they had a great future in front of them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You feel like that their parents were pretty highly educated?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, I think in most cases it was because they were in homes where they had dinner and talked about math and science. When other kids had dinner, they talked about football and family things like this. I think the environment they lived in and came from had a great deal to do with their being so bright.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned going to the movies. Tell me about that.
MR. COPELAND: I started going to the movies in that Happy Valley area, which most people in this town even today have never heard of this theater. It was the Playtime Theater. I bet you if you asked 10,000 people in this town, you won’t find one person who has heard of it. We went to the theater down there for a short while, and there are no photos. There was a little shopping center there – little grocery store and post office and everything – a barbershop and everything we needed. But as far as I know, there are no pictures anywhere of that shopping center. I’ve always wanted a picture of the theater, but it just doesn’t exist.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about on Saturday? Did you attend the theaters that show the Westerns?
MR. COPELAND: It was only on Saturday if I was lucky enough to get a dime. Never would I even think about asking for a dime during the week. Of course, most of the time I wouldn’t be wanting to go during the week to the larger production movies. I liked the cheap Westerns.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned one time to me some time ago about an event that happened at a movie theater in Midtown, I believe. Would you like to recall that?
MR. COPELAND: It was one of the most exciting times in my young life. I was really into these movies – the cowboy movies. I never dreamed I would get to see one of my heroes. That’s what was good about these movies back in those days. The cowboys were clean-cut. They didn’t drink or carouse or swear. In fact, if they had a bad man, they would pick him up to hit him again. When they shot someone, you didn’t see blood. If you wanted to be like one of those guys. You wanted to be Roy Rogers or Bob Steele or Gene Autry or one of these guys. One day I saw a poster – we didn’t take a paper, there was a poster on one of the telephone poles – the electrical poles. It said that Bob Steele was coming to town. I was just beside myself. I couldn’t believe that some little boy in East Tennessee would get the chance to meet one of his all-time heroes. When it comes time for Bob Steele to getting close to get here, at that time I started begging like crazy to get some money to go see him. Of course, they cost nine cents to get in. I was hoping I might get an extra quarter because I thought maybe Bob Steele would be offering photographs for sale. Things were cheap in those days as you might have guessed. A photo would get you a quarter. I got so lucky my mom gave me $.35. My dad would never give me any money. He thought it was a total waste of time going to those old cowboy shows. He did not know that you are getting a lesson in morality every single time you saw one of those shows. I got to see Bob Steele, and it was just a great time. Just as he closed his program…
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was this?
MR. COPELAND: This was at the Midtown Theater. They showed a movie with Bob Steele, and then he came up on stage and talked and talked. It was a great time. I remember one thing about us talking. He was talking – it was a big bang on one of the side doors, and it stopped, and Bob Steele started talking again. Here comes the banging on the door again. He would start talking again, and on the third time but was so loud it echoed throughout the theater.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were you sitting?
MR. COPELAND: I was sitting in kind of the center, and I remember distinctly as I was sitting on the center this was on the left-hand corner down near the stage. Finally Bob Steele says “Will one of you guys go over there and see what that is?” When the guy went over there and opened that door, here come one of the movie bad man – Blackjack O’Shea was his name. He was shooting that gun and screaming at the top of his lungs “Where is Bob Steele?” I think that little kid that opened that door probably just melted right into the floor. I have often wondered how many years it took him to get over that. After it was over, I did get to see Bob Steele, and he had photographs for sale, and they were a quarter – just exactly what I had left. I asked him to sign one for me, and he said “How do you want it signed?” I said “Will you please sign it to Bobby?” He said “I think I can do that because they used to call me- Bobby.” I left the theater with that cherished photo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s quite a story. When you went to high school, what was the dress for boys in those days?
MR. COPELAND: Pretty much blue jeans and T-shirts and tennis shoes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there smoking allowed in high school?
MR. COPELAND: No smoking. By the way, the girls always wore dresses and skirts. They wouldn’t dare show up in pants.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about dances – did you attend any dances?
MR. COPELAND: No, I did not. They had sock hops and things like that. I’ve been to a couple sock hops. I didn’t dance, just went with a couple of guys instead of going with a couple of girls.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about dating? Did you do any dating in high school?
MR. COPELAND: Sure, like anybody else. Luckily we moved to Illinois Avenue, and on my paper route was this beautiful little girl – a dark skinned girl. I delivered her paper for three years, and I often wondered about this because here I was dating the girl, and I delivered her paper for three years, and I never got a tip. I wasn’t sure if her parents were thrilled about me dating their daughter not. They never gave me a tip. Back in those days, I would say 75 percent of the people gave the paperboy a tip. If the paper was $.35, they might give you a half a dollar and say “Keep the change.” I know one lady on the paper route, she gave me a silver dollar every year, bless her heart.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you go on your dates?
MR. COPELAND: We didn’t have a car until I was 17, so pretty much I would go to church with her. Then we would come home and be at her house for a while. Then we could walk to the swimming pool. It wasn’t far from the pool from where we lived. We could walk to the Grove Theater. That was interesting. If we saw a real late movie, we took the cab home. There was a cab place there in Grove Center. Often we walked back up the hill. It shows you how times have changed. I wouldn’t want to walk up the hill now myself at night, much less accompanied by beautiful girl.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much the cab fare was?
MR. COPELAND: I think it was about $.35.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about to get into the movies?
MR. COPELAND: At that time, I think it was $.35. When I first started going to the movies, it was nine cents and it went up to $.12. I think it went up to $.35. It was cheaper for students. I know that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How much was popcorn?
MR. COPELAND: Popcorn was a dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Cokes?
MR. COPELAND: Didn’t have Cokes. They had a drink machine. They put three cans of orange juice, and they would add water to it. They had a mixture of stirred things. So you had orange juice and popcorn, which that’s a really good combination.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever attend any event at the Wildcat Den?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, not events, but just drop in like the other kids would. We would fraternize with other guys and gals you went to school with. We would shoot pool and play other games. Primarily pool was a big thing with the boys.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the Wildcat Den located?
MR. COPELAND: Right there in Grove Center, bordering on the Turnpike. I forget what it’s called today. By the way, after – before it was the Wildcat Den, it was a name I’m sure that you remember because you’ve done a lot of history. At one time it was called Club Fiesta. At Club Fiesta, they sold soft drinks and ice cream, cookies and so forth. I don’t think it was the Club Fiesta for very long. That was prior to the Wildcat Den.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s them, Middletown Community Center.
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, Middletown Community Center – that’s exactly what it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s the name today. Do you remember a particular individual that kind of looked after the Wildcat Den?
MR. COPELAND: I do – Shep Lauter. What a great guy he was. Here’s one man keeping everything under control – a whole bunch of sometimes-kind-of-wild high school kids. Shep was a mild, meek guy who wore a hat most of the time because he was bald. He was a very mild, meek guy. You got some football guy or some guy who thought he was tough who started a little controversy, and I remember this distinctly – Shep would just walk up to the guy, put his hand on his shoulder, and say very softly, “Now Son, we can’t have that here, and if you can’t do better I’m going to send you home and won’t allow you to come back for a while.” He could tame the wild guy, not even raising his voice – just patting him on the shoulder. He was a great guy. Everybody loved him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was noted for smoking a pipe, too.
MR. COPELAND: He always had a pipe – always had his pipe. I don’t think I ever saw him without the pipe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about the mud in the early days of Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: Some of it had been pretty well taken care of. At about the time we got here – Oak Ridge started about October 1942, and within a year or so to time, they had made remarkable progress. There was still mud. We had sidewalks at the time I got here. It was not that big of a problem – not like it was a year before we got here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have a radio?
MR. COPELAND: We had a radio. We had a very small radio.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you listen to the radio very much?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, all the time. You didn’t have any other kind of entertainment. Of course I like to listen to the Lone Ranger and The Shadow and the scary program called Inner Sanctum. We listened to all those programs. It was just like watching TV, except you had no video.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the name of the Shadow – who he was?
MR. COPELAND: Lamont Cranston.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I never will forget that name. How about playgrounds at the school? In your younger years, did you attend any playground or activities at the schools?
MR. COPELAND: Not very much. A lot of times we did live close enough to the school to do that. We always had to walk, and I didn’t have a bicycle until I was probably 16. There wasn’t a lot of playground activity.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Other than the cowboy movie stars, were there any other movie stars that you liked?
MR. COPELAND: All cowboys. Cowboys or nothing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about the gate opening in March 1949?
MR. COPELAND: I don’t remember a lot of it. I remember why I wasn’t there. We lived on the west end of town that time on West Bryn Mawr. West Bryn Mawr is a whole lot of way from Elza Gate. I’m guessing it must be 5 to 6 miles or longer. I wanted to go. Why did I want to go? Cowboy movie star Rod Cameron was here. These other people – I didn’t care beans about seeing these other people. I did know who they were. I wanted to go see Rod Cameron. Unfortunately there was a bus strike on. Because of the bus strike, I never got see Rod Cameron.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You missed a treat. I did.
MR. COPELAND: It seems like everybody I knew got to be there, except me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember them selling savings bonds in school?
MR. COPELAND: I remember buying savings stamps. Kids couldn’t afford a bond, but we would buy the savings stamps.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After high school – let me back up a minute. Did you ever go in and out of the gate before the gates were open?
MR. COPELAND: Very seldom. Again, we didn’t have a car. We would only go out when we went with somebody going somewhere. We didn’t have a car. It wasn’t often that we went out the gate. I would like to relate a story to you. My father was a bootlegger, you might say. Even though we lived in Oak Ridge, of course you know Oak Ridge was dry. He didn’t make whiskey, but he sold whiskey. He had an acquaintance that would go outside of Oak Ridge. This acquaintance had a large garden, and he had a car with the trailer. He would go outside of Oak Ridge to get the chicken manure from somebody’s farm to bring into fertilize his garden. The trailer he had had a false bottom. He would go out to the bootleggers and get the bottles of whiskey. He would put those bottles of whiskey in the false bottom. Then he would cover that whole trailer to the top with chicken manure. When he got to the gates, the guards did not want to get any closer to that chicken manure than I had to. So all that time that guy was transporting whiskey inside the city, he never got caught, and never got suspicion at all. He would bring it in, and he would sell it. He had my father and somebody else who would deal it out for him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you remember about some of the shopping centers, like down at Jefferson Shopping Center, what was there?
MR. COPELAND: At the Jefferson Shopping Center, I remember they had a grocery store. My favorite spot was a drugstore because they had a great variety of comic books. I would always go in there looking for comic books. Most of the time, I was looking for Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and Hop-along Cassidy comic books. I don’t know how often they came out, but anytime I went to the Jefferson Theater, I would also stop right down from the Jefferson Theater and stop at the drugstore to see if I could find a new cowboy comic book.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they have a Saturday morning program – maybe the Little Atoms at the Jefferson Theater?
MR. COPELAND: They surely did. All the kids tried to get there early if they could. The Little Atoms Club – it gave an opportunity for the kids to show off. The kids were the program. Playing an accordion, I remember back in those days it seemed like every kid took accordion lessons. I couldn’t stand the accordion, but it seemed like every kid would go out there and play the accordion. Sometimes they played it pretty well, and sometimes they would not play pretty well. Then they had the people that played the guitars, and what people would think they could do the dancer thing. But anyway, that was entertainment. It was neat. It was something to do. Back in those days, there wasn’t a whole lot to do, so that was something that the kids looked forward to – the Little Atoms Club.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you – how much did it cost to buy Coke? Did Cokes come in bottles in those days?
MR. COPELAND: They were a nickel. They came in bottles, and they were a nickel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about peanuts in the bag?
MR. COPELAND: Peanuts in the bag were a nickel, but often you would use one of the peanut machines that were close by. People don’t believe it today. We had penny machines back in those days where you could buy peanuts, bubblegum, and candy. Nobody could envision anyone having a penny machine. A penny’s worth of peanuts would be plenty good. Put it in the Coke and boy it tasted good. It was the salt and the sugar – the salt and the sugar and the peanuts in the Coke, really made it good. If you really wanted some excitement, back in those days you could buy Kool-Aid back in a penny pack. You put one of those packs of peanuts or Kool-Aid in one of those Cokes, and you better have it close to your mouth because are going to get it all over. It would explode, but you would think it would explode the can. You would put it up to your mouth and it would blow your jaws up. You could get it down. It was good. It was unusual.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was another form of entertainment that used to come to Oak Ridge over the years – carnivals. What you remember about carnivals?
MR. COPELAND: I remember that gambling wasn’t legalized, but that was gambling because everything was taking a chance. Of course they had this pitch man, and the pitch man would deliver a speech. It would seem like it was so desirable that you couldn’t turn it down. The one I remember more than anything else was on the west end of town. There was a field right near the Turnpike. It’s not too far from the minimart down there right now. Anyway, they had this guy in a cage, and they called him a chicken eater. I’m a chicken eater, too, but not a chicken eater like this. They would give this guy a chicken – all whole chicken, a whole live chicken. That guy would take his mouth and pull the feathers off. Then he would take apart the chicken. Of course it was a big deal to the guys, but the girls couldn’t stand it. They would be gagging and leaving. That was the big attraction – the chicken eater. He killed a chicken and ate part of the breast and so forth while it was raw. That’s what carnivals were. Things were unusual and ridiculous, but I remember another thing that was a carpenter. And this carpenter worked at the plant. And this carpenter was proud of the way he could drive nails. He could drive nails all day and never bend one. They had this place – this carny guy had this place where he had a piece of wood, and if you drove that nail through that piece of wood without bending it, then you would win a prize. This carpenter kept trying to do that, and he couldn’t do it because the nail would bend every time. I’m sure that the carny had a good sturdy regular run-of-the-mill nail, and I’m sure every time he would go to this carpenter to give him a nail, it was a fixed, rigged soft spot in the nail. The carpenter never could drive this nail. He spent every penny he had, and the carpenter had his paycheck with him. He stood right there trying to drive that nail until he signed the check over to the carny. The carny got all his money, plus his week of wages and he never did drive that nail.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much it cost to get in the carnivals?
MR. COPELAND: It was probably something like a dime for kids – probably a dime, maybe $.50 for adults.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did carnivals have rides also?
MR. COPELAND: Some of them had rides, and some of them just had games. This particular one I’m talking about – I don’t remember any rides at all. They just had games where you try to throw coins in a dish or you throw a baseball at something and win a teddy bear or that type of thing. All it is just a way to gyp the public. I guess they had some fun losing their money, but it’s not totally unlike these gambling places now. You know you’re not going to win, but they entice you to do it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I’m going to mention some places throughout the city that were here in the early days. Tell me what you remember about them. The Oak Terrace Ballroom…
MR. COPELAND: The Oak Terrace Ballroom – I never went to a dance there. I worked out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Every year they had a big dance there, where they chose, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and so forth. But that was the place – any big function that you had in town – it was the Oak Terrace Ballroom. It was the only ballroom in town. Below that ballroom of course was a bowling alley, a poolroom, a restaurant. I spent a lot of time when I got to be older in the poolroom. I used to bowl a little bit there. Roscoe Stevens owned the place. The restaurant was quite good. I remember every Thursday they had tenderloin and sweet potatoes and gravy and biscuits and honey. A lot of people went there on Thursday to get that stuff.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The homemade biscuits.
MR. COPELAND: They specialize in homemade stuff.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I know my kids looked forward to going there. How about the Snow White Drive-in?
MR. COPELAND: Gee whiz. That was the hangout back in those days. That was the only fast food place allowed. We didn’t have all these fast foods. That’s why you couldn’t make any money back in those days. Today you can make money easy. A kid today can make $500 easier then you could make $.25 back in those days because there are so many opportunities for you to go to work someplace. Snow White was one place where some of the kids in high school worked. My cousin worked there quite some time. He would make really good money. He might make five dollars a night, which was incredible back in those days. They paid $.35 an hour. You got tips. A dime was a pretty good-sized tip. A quarter was a really good tip back in those days. Everyone hung out at the drive-in. If you had a car, you would cruise around and around the place to see who you could see. We didn’t have a car, but I would get with a buddy. We would circle the place and circle the place. Snow White didn’t like that because they wanted you to land and buy something. In many cases, you had to keep driving around because all the parking places were full – consistently they were full.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the Snow White Drive-in located?
MR. COPELAND: The Snow White Drive-in was located about where the west corner of the Medical Arts Building, next to the Phillips 66 station across the street.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about the Skyway Drive-in?
MR. COPELAND: Man, the passion pit. That’s what we all called it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This is an outdoor drive-in theater.
MR. COPELAND: An outdoor drive-in theater. You would go to one of those movies. When it was over, you might remember the name of the movie. You might not remember the name of the movie. But anyway, it was a good place to go park and cuddle up and that type of thing. It was the place to go. It was so much fun. Many times they would have dollar night. Everybody would get in for a dollar. Sometimes it would be different prices. If they charged a single admission, you would always pay it and some guys in the trunk of the car try to get in. It got so after a while – if you look like that kind of guy, they would say “Let me look in your trunk.” Many times they would open the trunk, and there would be a whole bunch of guys in the trunk. They would lie on the floor board and things like this to try to slip in. It was a great place. We had a terrific time, and I probably can’t count the number of times that people drove off with a speaker hanging on their window. I don’t think the window broke, but it would snap the speaker off the thing. It was fun.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember playing bingo?
MR. COPELAND: I do. I won a lawn chair one night. They played bingo on Tuesday nights, and I won a lawn chair and a couple other things playing bingo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: If I remember right, the numbers would be called out over the PA.
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, you would sit in your car, and you would hear the people call it out, just like you see the movie. The movie sound came in in your little car in the little speaker. They would be in the building there where they sold concessions and that type of thing. They would call out the numbers. When you win, you would – toot, toot, toot – blow your horn real fast. Try to be the first one. Then you would hustle back there. If someone did it at the same time, you would hustle back there so you would beat them. It was interesting. As you guessed, Tuesdays were slow night for restaurants or any place. That helped their business out in the middle the week. You would get people coming up on the Tuesday so they could play bingo.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember that when someone would blow there horn because they had a bingo, then everybody would start blowing there horn.
MR. COPELAND: The first person to blow, everyone else would chime in. Maybe they were celebrating the victory.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You graduated from high school, where did you go to further your education?
MR. COPELAND: I graduated from Oak Ridge in 1953. Back to the same old thing, we never had any money. After I was out of school, the second semester I went to Carson-Newman. Then the next year I saved money and went for a full year. Then the next year, I didn’t have any money, so I had to work for a semester. I went back the second semester. Finally I got to the point where I would have to go back the second semester again, and I had the courses. There was nothing else I could take. I would have to work another year. Of course having no encouragement from home, I got discouraged and did not finish.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back up a minute. I know that you were on the high school track team that won the state championship. Is that correct? Tell me about that.
MR. COPELAND: That’s correct. Unfortunately for me, it was near the second or third week of track. In the long jump, I tore my ACL. Even though I was on the team – the championship team – I did not get to participate in the state championship because of that injury. I was injured most of the season.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they hold the state championship?
MR. COPELAND: My junior year – I failed to qualify for the state, just barely failed to qualify. That year it was held at Oak Ridge. That was the first school year with a new high school with her current high school. It was 1952, and that was the first school year for the current high school – the 1951-52 year. Somehow – I don’t know how Ben Martin pulled it off, but he talked them into having the state track meet here. The track hadn’t been finished very long, and I’m not sure they knew if that track was going to be ready. That was a major accomplishment for Ben Martin to pull off – to have the track meet here. My senior year it was held in Memphis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the track made out of cinders?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, it was cinders. A lot of people don’t know about cinders today because they’re paved with Tartan tour or whatever they paved them with. It’s really nice now. Back in those days, it was cinders. Of course any of the events held back in those days wouldn’t come close to the event today. You might run 10.1. Today they might run it in 9.5 because of the track conditions are so much better. One thing I remember more than anything else is the hurdle events. If you’ve seen the hurdle, so many times those guys that are hurdlers and they fall. I’m sure that after 50 years, some little guy still has those cylinders or cinders in their legs because they would get all bloody and he picked those things out. Some get so deep, you just leave them in there I think. That was a problem with the cinder. Of course in bad weather, it was just terrible – sloppy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe what the track shoe looked like when you were a runner.
MR. COPELAND: The track shoe – it had long spikes on it back in those days. They don’t need them today. You need of those long spikes to dig into the cinders to make sure you had good traction. But we, I’ll tell you if you happen be running the relay when this happened, you would be running a relay and you get too close to some guy, and he would jab those – accidentally of course – jab those spikes in you. You were injured pretty well. It hurt. They were long.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you went to Carson-Newman, where did you go from there?
MR. COPELAND: After Carson-Newman, I went to work – I worked at the theaters quite some time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Which theater?
MR. COPELAND: I worked at the Grove Theater. It was the best job I ever had. They didn’t make any money though. I loved it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your job?
MR. COPELAND: Whatever – doorman, usher, popcorn maker. You are expected to do everything. I changed the marquee. That was no fun. You changed the marquee in the pouring down rain or ice cold, but you had to change it anyway. Of course you change it – the movie would change on Thursday, and it changed on Wednesday night. You changed it after the movie was over. It would be pretty late at night, and you’d be up there changing that marquee by yourself. I guess if you fell, you would just lie there and die until somebody found you.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did the letters attach to the marquee?
MR. COPELAND: They were big letters, and you had a string – like a wire or rod that went across the sign. You would just hang the letters on the signs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Someone was telling me some time back that they did that, and they misspelled the word on the marquee. The lady that ran the theater told him about it, and he got there and misspelled it again. It took him three times before he ever got it right.
MR. COPELAND: When you’re up on that ladder, you think you have everything looking right. When you get down from the ladder, you think that there’s too much space. I need to do that again. What happened with a lot of – two or three times I know – it would get the “N” turned backwards. You would have to get down and look up there and climb back up again and turn that “N” around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You came back to Oak Ridge. Where were you living after Carson-Newman?
MR. COPELAND: Most of the time we lived in Oak Ridge. We had to move out of Oak Ridge when they tore those flattops down on Illinois Avenue. My parents moved to Clinton, but I never did live much in Clinton. I was going to school at the time, and then after that I got married. When we got married, we lived in a twin dwelling unit down on Lawton Road. I never really lived in Clinton. I was there a little while, I guess. Last time I counted, I think I lived at 13 different places in Oak Ridge. What makes that so strange is that in one place I lived 32 years in one house. Still, all this time I lived in 13 places in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your wife’s name?
MR. COPELAND: My first wife’s name was Saundra. Her last name was Simmons.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you meet her?
MR. COPELAND: On the paper route. That’s the one I met on the paper route.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you all married in Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: We were married in Georgia. It was very common back in those days to run off to Georgia to get married. We were married in Georgia. We eloped.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The first home you lived in when you were married, was that a TDU?
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, twin dwelling unit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did that consist of?
MR. COPELAND: I believe it was a one bedroom on one end, and maybe three on the other end. We lived in the one bedroom.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a job and a car?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, I had a job, and I was working Downtown for National Shirt Shops.
MR. HUNNICUTT: As a salesperson?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, salesperson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much money you are making?
MR. COPELAND: I think I made – I believe it was $45 a week.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now when you refer to Downtown, that’s the – what we refer to as the abandoned mall today.
MR. COPELAND: The abandoned mall, but it was a very nice stand-alone shopping center and busy, busy back in those days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you and your wife have children?
MR. COPELAND: We had two children – two boys.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are their names?
MR. COPELAND: The oldest boy is Mickey. He is a Methodist minister. The youngest’s name is Lance, and he is an accountant in Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have grandchildren?
MR. COPELAND: Two grandchildren – three grandchildren. Two are grown. Sam and Leah are grown. Landon lived in Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit more about your work history after the job at the shirt store.
MR. COPELAND: I worked at National Shirt Shop. Then I went to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the mailroom. That’s the lowest job they had in the mailroom. That was a prime job back in those days. Jobs were so scarce that it was – I felt like I had gone to heaven. That was such a great job. I worked there a year, and after year I went out and did clerical work. I did mostly clerical work. Later on I was – mostly I would describe my job as purchasing. That would be the best description.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get this job in the mailroom?
MR. COPELAND: I had put an application in. The job had played out at National Shirt Shop. I was trying to get a job at X-10 or either one of the plants. National Shirt Shop – they called me back. I didn’t want to work for them, but I would have worked for anybody at that time to make some money. I didn’t want to work for them, and they had been talking to X-10. Things weren’t going – I kept waiting on them to make a decision. So when National Shirt Shop called me one day, the manager said “The district manager’s going to be in town. He wants to talk to you about coming back to work.” When that happened, I got on the phone and called back out to Personnel and said “Hey, I have a job offer. Are you guys interested in hiring me or not?” The guy says “Can you come to work tomorrow?” I said “I certainly can.”
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let’s go back a little bit. How was the city when the Downtown Shopping Center was booming? How do you remember the city? Was it prospering? How do you remember the city in those days?
MR. COPELAND: Of course I was in high school at this time. Are you talking about before I got married?
MR. HUNNICUTT: When they built Downtown about 1955.
MR. COPELAND: I think things were going great until about 1961 or so when they had a monstrous layoff at K-25. It seems like things were going pretty well at the time. When they had that big layoff at K-25, it wasn’t long before all these East Village houses came for sale. It was pretty rough for quite some time. When Downtown was first built, it seemed like things were going very, very well.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the big oak tree on the other side of the gym of the high school?
MR. COPELAND: Certainly, it was a shame to lose that tree. It was a great big oak tree and lots of leaves. There were always some kids out there – high school kids – lingering around that tree, lying down in the grass in the summer time, maybe studying a little bit and so forth. I guess it got diseased and had to be removed. It was a beautiful tree.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The story goes that when they were building the high school, they wanted to cut that oak tree down because of the water lines or something of that nature. There was a protest against it. They wanted to leave it for the students to sit under like you describe. That’s why the oak tree was saved. But when they built the new addition to the high school, there was no way to save it.
MR. COPELAND: I didn’t know when it was cut down, but the school was a nice backdrop behind that tree. It was such a pretty tree. There was another one down on the Roane County and Anderson County line. There used to be some political rallies and things like that – local political rallies and so forth. They had a big tree down there. I think probably they had the meeting there because they had that big tree. There was no air-conditioning or anything. I think that’s one of the reasons they had the meeting there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Very well could be. You have written some books on cowboy Western stars. Tell me about that.
MR. COPELAND: I was always interested in cowboys as a youngster. I didn’t have a good role model at home, so the cowboys were my role model. I didn’t want to be like my father. I wanted to be like one of the cowboys because they did everything that was morally right. It was just wonderful. I hope I patterned my life after the cowboys. My interest in cowboys laid dormant for about 35 years until one Saturday I turned on the local PBS station to a guy that was Marshall Andy – Riders of the Silver Screen. He was showing a cowboy movie. That’s just brought my interest back just like that. I got really interested. I contacted Marshall Andy. Since that time, I’ve been on the show about 50 times. One thing led to another, and I was writing little articles. About 1986 or 1996, I was approached by a publisher – the largest publisher in the world of movie cowboy books. They said “What you do, I think you could do a good book.” I thought “Me do a book?” I just tried to ease through high school and I had very little English or anything else or Math or anything else just trying to get through. He approached me about this, and I thought I couldn’t do it. The more I thought about it, what can I lose, I can try it. So I wrote my first book. It was published in 1996. The guy said, “You got another book in you?” I said, “I don’t know, maybe. I’ll think of something.” So I did another one, and he kept coming back – “You got another book? You think you can do another one? We’re having good success here.” I said “Okay, I’ll see what’s going on.” To make a long story short, I’ve written 22 movie books. I’ll say this as modestly as I know how: I’m the number one author in the world of movie cowboy books.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Name some of the books.
MR. COPELAND: “Roy Rogers,” “Bob Steele,” “Wild Bill Elliott,” “Charles Starrett,” “Best of the Bad Men,” “Trail Talk,” “Silent Hoof Beats,” a bunch of them, “B Western Boothill,” which has been my bestseller.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you talk about B Westerns, what does that mean?
MR. COPELAND: B stands for the budget. It’s low budget. These were the Saturday what they called programmers. They were about an hour long – read at an hour long. They were primarily designed for juveniles, and you would go to the movie and have the cowboy movie and a cartoon and then a serial, (which is a short continued each month or each week, for about 12 to 15 weeks). That’s what a serial was and it was primarily for the youngsters. The theater was pretty much crowded on Saturday. But the thing about it is, people look down on these things now, but they made such an impression. A lot of people got their moral training from these movies. They taught you what was right from wrong. They taught you the golden rule. I got all my upbringing – I’m not perfect, but I’d be far less perfect if it hadn’t been for these B-Western movies.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Have you remarried since your first wife?
MR. COPELAND: Yes, my first wife died in 1975. I met this lady where I worked, and remarkably she had a similar summer job in a different division. We had a lot of things in common. One thing led to another, and we started dating. We married in 1976. We’ve been very, very happy. She is a precious lady. To me, she’s the best lady in the world. I’m sure many people think that about their wives, but I think mine is the greatest.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is her name?
MR. COPELAND: Her name is Joan.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you all have any children?
MR. COPELAND: We did not have any children. Both my children are from my first wife. Joan is just like the mother to my youngest child because we got married when he was six. Really, she is about the only – with all the hospitalizations and so forth with my first wife, Joan is the only mother really that he knows. He loves her dearly, and my oldest son respects her greatly.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you all belong to any clubs or organizations?
MR. COPELAND: We do not. We are active in church – the Central Baptist Church here in Oak Ridge. I’ve served as a deacon. One son is a deacon, and the other son is a minister.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything that we hadn’t talked about that you would like to talk about?
MR. COPELAND: I can’t think of anything. We just about covered everything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: One thing that comes to mind that I’ve been told – maybe you did this and didn’t. During the days of the wooden boardwalks – of course, there were spaces between the boards. People would wait in certain places to catch buses. I’ve heard about guys taking a stick, putting bubblegum on the end of the stick and sticking it down through the cracks to get the money or change that was dropped. Did you ever do that?
MR. COPELAND: I never did that. I have heard of people doing that. Of course if you drop the change down there, that’s the only way to get it. Some of them have pretty good openings, where if you get a small stick of bubblegum down there, you might have a rat grab the stick. Those things were huge. I can’t impress on you how big those things were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How have you seen the city prosper over the years since you’ve been here?
MR. COPELAND: I’ve seen it prosper to a point. It hasn’t prospered in my view in many years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you think – why is it stalled out?
MR. COPELAND: We are totally dependent on the government for the biggest thing. We aren’t getting enough money from them, like Alcoa. The city of Alcoa gets from Alcoa. The motor companies used to pour into the cities. The average person outside of Oak Ridge thinks we are getting all kinds of money from the government. If this was not the government, if these were individual businesses – if these plants were individual businesses, we would get far more revenue in taxes and so forth than we are getting from the federal government. That’s been one thing. Where there used to be lots of – it seemed like back in the old days you didn’t have to have a lot of things to do to entertain the youngsters. I don’t think we have that today. I don’t know of the youngsters participating because we have so many video games and computers and so forth. But the town has gotten old. You drive down the street and all you see is gray-haired people. When I was growing up, it was a very young town. The average age was probably 35 or less. You could always find kids to play with. They were all over the place. Now that’s not the case. Everybody here is grandparents now. The town has gotten old. I don’t know if we will ever come back. I’m afraid it won’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you like best about Oak Ridge?
MR. COPELAND: I like it because it’s not crime-free, but it’s not like some places you go to. It’s a small city. It’s not like New York or even Charlotte or Chattanooga or Knoxville. You are free to move around, and you feel relatively safe here. Unfortunately, the shopping has deteriorated to the point that new people have to leave town now to buy things. That’s a real negative thing. The school system is still good. It’s rated among the best. We have a marvelous high school. I don’t think we have much else that we can showcase to lure people to the city.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So the city is still a secret city?
MR. COPELAND: That’s kind of a sore spot with me – the Secret City. We were the Atomic City for years and years. Oak Ridge would have clubs, and every club in here was the Atomic City Beagle Club, Stamp Club, Atomic Coin Club. You name it. Now it seems like atomic has a bad taste to it to most people. What gets me is that our city has given into this, and we have become not the Atomic City anymore. We are the Secret City. I don’t like it. I really don’t like it. I know we were the secret city in the beginning, but I don’t think we were ever known as a secret city – even though we had secret things going on here. I don’t think we were really ever known as a secret city. This is caught on big in the last few years. Now we have a car dealership and everything you can think of. It’s Secret City. They don’t want the Atomic City tied to the place anymore. That’s unfortunate.
MR. HUNNICUTT: One last question. What’s the most amazing thing you have seen in your lifetime?
MR. COPELAND: I can’t think of anything. Can you name a few events?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Going to the moon.
MR. COPELAND: Yeah, is there anything greater than that? During my lifetime, we dropped the atomic bomb. That was a big thing. That put Oak Ridge on the map. Like I said before, that’s what we were known for. Now it’s as if we are ashamed that we did this. Going to the moon was one of the biggest things. By the way, there are people who don’t believe we went to the moon. My mother was always one of them. She said “I will never believe that we went to the moon.” I thought that was pretty funny, but I think we did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bob, it’s been my pleasure to interview you. I thank you for your time. This is your recount of growing up in Oak Ridge. It’s a history that will be part of Oak Ridge history. Maybe one day some young student will be doing a research paper on Oak Ridge history, and pull up your interview and take from your interview some of the things that you said and how you described living in Oak Ridge and put it in their paper.
MR. COPELAND: Wouldn’t that be terrific?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Again, thank you very much for your time.
MR. COPELAND: I appreciate it so much.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Copeland’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]